East Texas MLD survey

Guys,

Anyone in east texas doing camera survey for their MLD reporting? We seem to be down a lot, and want to find out what others are seeing.

We think the counts are lower because the mild, wet spring/summer has given them plenty of food and they dont have to move much at all.

Deer aren't moving much it seems. Hogs are moving a lot.

We're seeing deer, but not like normal.. There is so much groceries on the ground, they have to get up from their bed and walk two steps to eat and lay back down.. They don't need to leave the comfort of their heavy cover.

I have been using cameras for surveying my lease for many years..I not only survey once for the parks and wildlife but I also conduct two other surveys during the year and when I see problems, I will conduct another survey. Camera surveys are generally very accurate. In saying this, I don't believe deer surveys are compromised by how much deer have to eat. If a camera survey is done with care and a lot of work by procedures that are proven...results can be believed.
If your numbers are lower than normal..be patient, conduct another survey later in the year. You should repeat the numbers within reason(good or bad)...conducting the survey well before season and before acorns should get you numbers in the same relative numbers. Your neighbors may be over feeding area which will effect yours numbers..do another survey to verify the first one.
Have confidence in your surveys...cameras will tell the truth.

seeing plenty of deer on camera at night. Normal during a wetter than normal summer. More rain on the way too. Its going to be the season for bow hunters. We are already seeing tree rats knocking off acorns.

Not seeing any bucks right now- just does and fawns. Lots of pigs. One of my leases was on LAMPS for the last several years but with LAMPS and MLD going away for the new program we are just going with the state limit. I used the estimator on the TP&W site for the new program and for 840 acres they were only going to allow two bucks and six does so we decided to forget it.

East Texas deer are a lot different than the deer I grew up hinting in the hill country. It's taken several seasons of surveys for me to figure out where the deer are this time of year. This year I didn't put any cameras on feeders, rather on pinch points, creek

Whoops....Creek crossings, brushy fencelines, etc. Like Fishtail said, multiple surveys are good to do. I know there are more deer on the property than this year's "official" survey says because I have more buck and fawn photos from previous camera sets, but those pictures dont count on this year's census. However, our acre/deer ratio is in line with previous year's records.