I’ve seen SO many of you have terrible issues concerning over reach with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Please Please this is the time to express your concerns with the governing body in charge of the entire organization...The Sunset Committee!

Right now the Sunset Committee is taking comments with your concerns. PLEASE go to www.sunset.texas.gov/input-form and then click to the TPWD line and express your concerns! This is the ONLY way to get to the Gustavo in Texas.

TPWD is under extreme scrutiny on how they have been handling landowner issues, kids, arrogance and trespassing just to name a few. The Sunset Committee is how it’s done and they don’t want the public to know this!

I just put a comment there. I have always thought it rather ridiculous to require a hunter to bring the head of a doe out of the field to prove the sex of the animal. This just means I have to dispose of it after I get home. After all, who has a use for a detached doe head? It makes more sense to leave the mammary attached to a hind quarter and leave the head with the gutpile after you quarter the animal. This is how my native CO allows hunters to brings doe deer/antelope and cow elk out of the field without having to lug around the head. To me this makes a lot of sense.

This is great! I've never understood why you have a late doe/spike season after they competed for food all winter, the big bucks are run down and the doe are already bred...makes 0 sense.

This had nothing to do with biology. It was done in the hopes that dads/granddads ect would take more kids hunting after the "buck" hunting was finished. I'm not sure it accomplished that goal, but trying to rationalize it through biology was never its intention.

We use late doe season to shoot most of our does. If you shoot them early it pressures our deer enough the bucks, especially the mature ones go underground.

I don't know about in the other states but here while it is proof of "sex" you tag by antler or antlerless so the determinant of sex or tag is the head not its reproductive organs.

There is already extended youth days so the whole dad's/granddads taking more kids hunting being the reason for a late doe/spike doesn't hold water to me much. On MLD lands you can hunt through the end of Feb...have youth go through Feb and have a doe/spike time during the archery season before competition begins. And if your worried about spooking big bucks then don't shoot if one is around...all just my opinion but it's a poor system in my opinion right now.

An antlered doe in Texas requires a buck tag. Granted they are rare but it happens.

What really needs to be changed in a huge way is taking the deer breeders away from TPWD and putting them under Texas Animal Health Commission. It’s ridiculous to think that’s not the best for disease control and these are pen raised animals. Private property owners should be fighting like hell to make this change!

I’m sure this will get somebody fired up but they need a law which limits the number of deer that can be harvested on smaller tracts of land. Tired of the neighbors with 50 acres of clear cut pasture in a one buck county that have 4 to 5 trucks parked outside a camper all season long. Seems like somebody from that direction is taking a shot every weekend.

Not fired up. How many acres/deer would you suggest?

At least in Texas there is a way to be heard and considered, this sounds like something out of the third world dept of wildlife and fisheries in Louisiana were the game wardens make the policies, regardless of public and landowner input, here is one example to back up what I said, a couple of years ago after one of our common floods, the dept reduced the deer rake in an area that was only minimally affected, without the input or consideration of any of the landowners who own all of the land.
The game wardens have more input on these issues than the biologist do. Shame on us for not speaking up, sure hope the Texans do.
DC

I understand that but an antlered doe would not be shot thinking it was a doe. A hunter would be thinking it was a buck and would be tagged accordingly. I am talking about the 99.999999% of does without antlers. There is no logical reason to require the head of a doe be retained when another option is readily available.

The head thing is kind of goofy. We will cut up several deer on any given day. Although we are careful to keep heads and meat together, accidentally sending a doe head with buck meat wouldn't be impossible.
Now we get a letter from the land owner, he writes them up in minute.


(i) In lieu of proof of sex, the person who killed the wildlife resource may:

(1) obtain a receipt from a taxidermist or a signed statement from the landowner, containing the following information:

(A) the name of person who killed the wildlife resource;

(B) the date the wildlife resource was killed;

(C) one of the following, as applicable:

(i) whether the deer was antlered or antlerless;

(ii) the sex of the antelope;

(iii) the sex of the turkey and whether a beard was attached; or

(iv) the sex of the pheasant; or

(2) if the deer is to be tested by the department for chronic wasting disease, obtain a department-issued receipt (PWD 905).

Amen to this. I have been wearing the phone out at TP&W trying to get something done about this.

Slippery slope there. Not to mention hard to implement and monitor.

Legislating harvest restrictions on small properties I think is the wrong way to go about the over-harvesting issue that is present some places. Efforts toward educating Land Owners and good stewardship might be the better path. But there will always be those who only 'take' and never 'give back' to the ecosystem.

Guides, Outfitters and Land Owners...if we don't push to take deer breeding to Texas Animal Health Commission (where we can fight for ownership) with the Sunset Committee, it will be and is currently ILLEGAL to charge trophy fees or any fee for shooting larger bucks, specific deer or any whitetail or turkey or Javelina above and beyond a trespass/hunt fee on properties. Just a little fyi note.

I had no idea the TPWD was under such scrutiny? Is the sunset committee a place to voice positive
Comments also?

I would think so. It’s not the Wardens it’s the current administration. They are running the agency as a communistic dictatorship as put by other law enforcement agencies...”Gestapo” is the term most used by other law enforcement agencies. This is a matter of property rights and government overreach as big as it gets.

You don't want to get this. What to you think HF is for? You get TPWS involved in dictating what every property owner can and can not do you will have a real mess on your hands. It may not turn out the way you are expecting.

The wildlife doesn't belong to landowners.

What if the density of deer on your property is so poor, that you only get a tag every other year? Bet you'd sing a different song.

Some of ya'll want to own not just the land but everything that comes and goes in it. If that's your thing then put up a high fence. Or deal with it the way it is... or move to Europe. Live under that system our forefathers left behind so we could have a better life. One where there were no hunters except for the wealthy elite. Only poachers.

I sure hope they don't give HF folks the ability to manage under a different group, sounds terrible. Wildlife is owned by the state. If anything, IMO the opposite should occur and high fences should be illegal due to the fact that it restricts to the highest degree the states native wildlife. It is almost the same issue as fish hatcheries with salmon, even though the intent is all good and harmless, you actually erode the natural evolution of the animal reducing their overall potential...... but hey they will have big antlers......

I am sure their are some outliers however TPW has a tough job to do and I am unaware of the Gustapo activities that are bring referred to. You couldn't pay me enough money to be a GW, policing half the yahoos out there.

I do own a high fence and I buy exotics and whitetails and vote for Trump. That’s the issue I have. How can I buy whitetails and put them on my high fence ranch and not own them? I own the exotics but not the whitetails? How can I then sell a hunt for something I don’t own above and beyond a trespass fee? I can’t! There seems to be a lot of socialists way of thinking on this forum and I hope you all understand that it’s the TPWD administration I’m speaking of and not the Wardens, heck most Wardens are complaining of these same issues that I’ve personally spoken with. This is just a chance for property owners to stand up to change something that has been wrong or grey for too long!

The question is how can you buy whitetails?

It is easy. Look in the "Exotics Classified" section and you can buy some there.