Nontypical - first of all I really appreciate your story and pictures. Sounds like you had a great time and harvested some fantastic deer. Second, I for one appreciate your restraint and decorum in the face of criticism. You should be applauded for that. Third, you sound like a very ethical hunter, who understands not only your property, but what is happening around it, and you have maximized your opportunity by providing supplemental feeding. Your description of your acreage being surrounded by a large ranch with no deer hunting on three sides and a river on the other leads me to believe that your harvest does not hurt the quantity and quality in your location. You have just maximized your opportunity. I would argue that there is not a hunter on this forum that does not try to take advantage of their given situation. Fourth, your harvest was in line with law, as well as ethical hunting. You harvested either old deer or management deer. In my opinion what you did actually helped, yes helped, the overall quality. And there is nothing wrong with taking a mature "trophy", as it is recognized by you. As you succinctly reported, deer are nomadic. They don't care about property boundaries. You are providing supplemental feed, helping the overall population. Bucks follow does. You gave food to does. Bucks naturally follow. Kudos to you. Fifth, not sure how the whole Aggie thing came up, but it sounds like some folks need to act like adults. I personally am not an Aggie, but my son is and I know he would be offended just because he chose to attend one of the finest universities in the country. Sixth, some folks on here think they have the "right" to criticize without all the facts being displayed. Some of these members I have agreed with in the past, but IMO this has gone too far.

Anyway, thanks for hanging in there. You handled this fine while some folks beat a dead horse all day. Best wishes!

Anytime you post on public forum you run the chance someone will take exception or have a differing opinion. That is life. I have stated my opinion as eloquently and polite as I can muster. My point was then and is now, the panhandle is experiencing an explosion in pressure. NT is from the panhandle according to his location tag. He will certainly concur. I can remember a time when we had no white tails. I only hope that we can urge hunters to take care of the resource. We killed them out once, it could happen again.


The Aggie thing got brought up simply by the fact that 3 of us participating in the thread are Aggies.

this is what it boils down to, bmd and the other haters are butt hurt because nontypical shot good deer in a week, while they spent more money on more acreage and more time, while they get good deer they feel they have been cheated, nontypical if you were to turn your lease back on the market the haters would fall all over each other to get your 180 acres

this is what it boils down to, bmd and the other haters are butt hurt because nontypical shot good deer in a week, while they spent more money on more acreage and more time, while they get good deer they feel they have been cheated, nontypical if you were to turn your lease back on the market the haters would fall all over each other to get your 180 acres

No need to respond to that

this is what it boils down to, bmd and the other haters are butt hurt because nontypical shot good deer in a week, while they spent more money on more acreage and more time, while they get good deer they feel they have been cheated, nontypical if you were to turn your lease back on the market the haters would fall all over each other to get your 180 acres

It's ok BMD. I think everybody would probably agree that taking 5 mature deer per 180 acres in the state would not be good. I have no idea the exact acreage of Donley Co but let's look at 4 counties in the panhandle: We'll go with Gray, Donley, Wheeler, and Collingsworth. If they were only 20 square miles each that would give us 40 square miles of land total which is about 1.024 million acres. If it were all split into 180 acre tracts, there'd be 5,689 tracts, and 5 old bucks per 180 acres was harvested that would be a grand total of 28,445 mature bucks harvested in those 4 counties. Let's get real, that will never happen. I will apologize to anybody reading this that assumes you can run up to the panhandle for a week and shoot 5 mature deer off of a small piece of land. As I have mentioned more than once, this is the first time we've been this fortunate in 10 years and it's the first buck I've taken there since 2008. I guess I could go back and post previous years where we only took one buck or two, maybe that would chill a few people out and let them sleep a little better. If we're "shooting" this place out, it would seem that after 10 years all we'd see are doves flying around the feeders. ---DISCLAIMER--- I take no responsibility for anybody who comes and leases/buys a small piece of land in the TX panhandle after reading this and doesn't shoot 5 mature bucks in a year off of it. From working and hunting in the panhandle since '99, it definately seems that it greatly depends on your SURROUNDINGS and proper management practices that will determine the quantity and quality of deer you'll see.

Hate to hear you say that. I just bought 90 acres on leasebroker.com and was expecting 2.5 bruisers next week. The guy with the crossbow survey will contact you tomorrow...

Did you learn math in Aggie land