Opinions, what area of Texas has the biggest bodied deer?

I I tend to think the north east upper and lower panhandle area. What say the masses?

In the right parts of south texas they grow huge also.. seen some from Duval Co. that were giants

few spots on the Trinity river will push some big bodied deer out

Panhandle along the Red River.

Keep going north. The Ag feilds north of dalhart, cactus, spearman etc.

Biggest non protein fed doe I've seen my wife shot near de leon this year.

What about them Swamp Deer Nav..

As rule the extreme northern Panhandle will have larger bodied bucks on average, but parts of the Golden Triangle area can have very large bodied bucks on well managed ranches in very wet years. I have seen 219-220 lb field dressed bucks come out of that area in those years.

Our on the hoof body weights for bucks range from 200-250 - south texas

The further north you go the bigger, Bergmann's rule.

I dunno, but Ive seen 200lb doe taken near Memphis and the heaviest WT I've ever shot was near there as well, 240lb tiny basket 8pt.

200 lb doe? Wow - would love to see a pic of that - cannot imagine

The deer up there gorge on wheat and corn - it's all cultivation.

I'm from Savannah, the largest doe I ever killed was 178#, I have also killed trash bucks over 200# but then again that's not in Texas so it don't really help the thread. However I now run a ranch outside of Del Rio and feed protein year around and only occasionally push a mature buck to 200 on a good year.

Live or dressed weight?

I've seen a few huge deer come from Grayson county and there is about 2500 acres of creek bottom not far from here that throws out huge bodied bucks every year. Age is the common denominator on these 2 spots.

Talking natural....no high fence, no protein, just natural deer....the eastern side of the panhandle basically from Childress to the OK border around Perryton. The biggest of that area I think are in the Clarendon/Memphis area and also up toward Shamrock.

Okla dept of wildlife use to check and weight every deer up until 3-4 years ago. You could look at the log book. I've seen whitetail as big as 290 dressed in cimmeron county. I'd say average is 230-40 on the hoof.

Seen some pretty big deer hanging in strafford at Browns meat locker. Some big deer north of dalhart

**** big deer

You talking far NW corner of TX? SE Colorado creek bottom whitetails? With major ag just up the way? Further from the equator, especially N, requires more body mass to thrive. Different sub-species.?

Can't back it up with stats. But. From what I've seen, the heaviest whitetails in Texas come from the Red River valley and drainages. To the south and east of the Texas Panhandle.

Any area that has low deer numbers that are allowed to get some age and those deer live in/around farmed cropland will have larger bodies in the panhandle.

Panhandle and south golden triangle.

This thread needs more cowbell, I mean pics, we need pics of some of these behemoths.

My largest buck, including headgear, was a 6.5 yr old that field dressed at 225#'s from the Rolling Plains of the SE Panhandle back in 2007. He was bigger than any mature MD we shot that year as well. No protein, no ag fields either.

I lived in Spearman for 5 years. There re some monsters up there. One of my students killed the third largest Mule Deer ever killed in Texas up near Palo Duro Canyon. It was an 18 point. No feeder, open range kill.

As a rule, yes. However, South Texas deer are considerably larger than their northern cousins in the Hill Country.

I hear its because of the oak leaves....

I know The deer north of Childress yall are talking about being big bodied. The GW up there ( great guy) told me, he didnt know why but there is a strain of deer in that area that resemble Kansas deer ( some with double throat patches and different look about them) he said they are just noticeably larger.

Just looking at the pics on here you can obviously tell which deer are from up north. They look like damn cows. I drive around south and central texas all week, and I've never seen one and thought now that's a big bodied deer. Maybe the racks are big but not the bidies. I can honestly say south Texas deer have nothing on north Texas deer.

I have hunted North and South Texas. All of the 200+lb deer I have taken have come from South Texas with the heaviest being 242 lbs. My vote is South Texas.

Panhandle.
Seen some whoppers; Though. Kent, Borden and Scurry Counties.
With that said.

Yelp my ranch borders Texas. I'd say more Kansas genetics.

All alafafa, corn, cotton and wheat country.

we have had to check station deer for 15 plus years so I know my weights are accurate.

That's a density issue. Some of the native HF hill country ranches are producing 200 plus pound deer.

Wow, that's interesting

We hunt in Wellington (very near Memphis) and have mature doe that push 200lbs and bucks that push 300lbs....especially when peanuts were being farmed heavily. Most seem to be in the 250lb range these days. This is the only pic on my phone of this doe that my daughter shot, but I know it was pushing that 200lb mark. I see mature doe all the time that you would swear was a mature buck if you weren't able to see their head. I shot a buck a few years back in Turkey (also close to Memphis) that was 280lbs. It's the deer in my signature. Deer are just big bodied in that part of the state.

We have exactly this in Wellington, which is 30 miles north of Childress.....double throat patch deer and two different strains of deer. Some have a very orange tone to them and are the bigger of the two most often. Not sure if that is the resemblance of Kansas deer or not.

Dressed or live weights on the ones posted?

Live weights.

This one dressed a little over 200 and was not near what he had been. He had gotten old and we had changed from peanuts to cotton in his area.


Collingsworth county btw

We've been hunting the far N TX Panhandle for almost 20 years. The avg mature whitetail has field dressed 175lbs, with many going over 200, up to 218lbs field dressed. They are most definitely a KS strain whitetail, and as someone mentioned previously, the bucks with the orang'ish tint to them tend to be the bigger, longer haired strain.

I would say the panhandle because I think they are a Kansas strain. There are some huge bodied Mule deer up there also, buddy of mine killed a Mulie north of Wayside next to the Palo Duro state park that weighed 265 field dressed at the Happy,Texas locker plant.

I have hunted both deep south Texas and the panhandle. From my experience, the panhandle gets the nod on body weights. There are outliers in every region that make you question things, however on average, the panhandle deer a just larger bodied.