As I've said before I'm relatively new to deer hunting so I'm figuring this out piece by piece. I'm hunting in runnels county, northeast of ballinger. I know there are plenty of deer in the area, but we really didn't see many at all this season. We probably went out over 10-15 times and only saw a big group of does once. Saw a couple of does every once in a while. Saw one buck the entire season. Never saw any deer in the evening, only in the morning. I was just wondering if this was a weird year? I know of 2 guys that have 3 different places with 9 blinds altogether and they hunted for 5 days in a row and never saw even a doe(this was about a week ago.) if anyone has any tips or what not, as usual they're always welcome!

It was a weird weather year for sure this year and with no rain, acorns were plentiful and never soured till late December. I hunt up by Woodson and saw plenty of deer, about 3-4 on average per hunt. That would be my take and after mid December, daylight sighting really got lean with less cover when the mesquites lost there leaves. Cams showed and continue to show lots of night movement.

You wont ever have bucks if everybody shoots them.

Normal numbers of deer out West for us this year.

Ya we saw movement in the night on cameras pretty consistent. Had a nice 8 point coming in around 1 am, but never saw him once in daylight. Someone may have shot him cause i havent seen him in a while. We had trouble getting the doe inside the fence around our feeder. We have quite a few pigs out here, but haven't seen them in daylight either.

What type of livestock on the place? Hogs? Feed pens on feeders? How much rain did you have from late summer till end of season? Acorns?

Well at about the start of December the land owner had to put about 75 head of cattle on the place, but they were kept off the wheat field and a 100 acre coastal field as well, which is where I hunted most of the time cause that's where we saw most deer crossing. There are plenty of hogs on the place which is why we put up a fence around our only feeder. We've had about 12-14 inches since summer. We had a big, about 7-8 inch, rain in October but its been pretty dry since. Not many oak trees out where we are either. Just a lot of mesquite, unfortunately. There are wheat fields all over, including the 200 acre one that's sowed on our place.

My guess would be combo of several things without seeing the place. The cattle being moved on hurt for a while. Mix in the rains for new fall growth and the deer left the feeders for new growth. Throw in the wheat on/around your lease and the new presence of cattle may have moved the deer off. Did you put TC on water to see how much deer activity was there?

I think that's right. Pretty much the same story everywhere. Unless you happened to score. A crappy season can turn into a great season in about 5 seconds.

Yeah that could be it. I would think that at least some deer would come to our wheat field, but we never saw any on it. i walked the edge of the field yesterday and could see where pigs had been there, but no deer tracks.
Actually I hadn't thought about putting the camera at the tanks to see whats coming there. I might do that the next time I make it up there.

Haha ain't that the truth!