This Wednesday evening(12-29) at just before 5 pm I ended a ten-year buck drought and got my first East Texas buck to boot. For about 25 years I was on a lease on the Victoria/Goliad County border, with no problem seeing 10 to 30 deer most hunting days and able to tag out every season if I wanted to. Well, our group finally lost the lease in 2012 and with both my boys playing college sports I didn't try real hard to get a new lease in the next few years. All the other members of that lease either gave up hunting or passed away so I was on my own. I really wanted to own a small place with hunting and fishing and about a month before I retired in January 2019 my wife and I bought a place in Houston County.

This place is about 4 hours from our home in Inez, but land was cheaper than around the Victoria/Inez area and my wife and I had always liked the Piney Woods when we went to see my son play baseball in Mississippi. I was looking for a small place with creeks and ponds and a shop/house and dang if we didn't find one that was within the Davy Crockett National Forest.

I didn't do all of my research and didn't realize the big difference in deer density or how spooky and feeder adverse a lot of these East Texas deer were. I had just read that there were some big bucks in Houston County and the National Forest. I just didn't know they were all Nocturnal!!! So, 10 years after my last buck and 3 years after we bought the place and after seeing some pretty mouthwatering bucks on my cameras at night the last couple of years, I finally got a legal buck.

I saw a lot of bucks and a fair amount of does this year and even passed on two legal bucks that were a little wider but didn't have the tall tines that some of these East Texas bucks have. Finally, after being first seen around Thanksgiving for the first time on my cameras at night naturally, this guy finally started coming out at all times of the day in the last week. So, when I saw a deer coming through the woods, I was ready and got him with a good heart shot with my dad's old 30.06 that I've used to kill all my bucks.

He ran about 20 yards and went down. He truly only has six points due to having just bumps as brow tines and is one of those East Texas bucks where the beams grow upwards and narrow, but he was 15 inches inside spread so he was fine for me! He weighed in at 162 pounds before gutting. Last week I got two fairly large sows and Friday out there I found a really neat arrowhead that you can see completely through if you hold it up to the sun. Then the topper is, I bought probably my first lottery scratch-off in probably five years for some reason on my way home and won a 100 dollars!!! Was just a good week, LOL!

I've never hunted anywhere but East Texas and I know from talking to friends and studying it for 45 years, it's just different....congratulations! A good East Texas hunter would clean out a South Texas ranch

Two totally different approaches for sure; what you'd do in East Texas you'd never have to or consider doing in South Texas and vice versa. Just different hunting tactics more than anything else.

Congrats

Heck of a trip. And awesome arrowhead!

Great write up……congrats on your first buck from your property…..

Congrats!

You did good sir

He's a great Buck Sir and your patience and commitment is admirable. You are a true sports mans. Good luck in the future!!!!

Congratulations on a great buck! East Texas is truly a tough place to hunt. I hunted it back in my college days. I never had much luck. Really nice arrowhead find as well!

Congrats!

Nice trip and that arrowhead is way coo!

Congrats!

Great job and real nice E Tex buck

Congrats on a great buck. E TX is a challenge. Here are some things I have learned. There is usually a good acorn crop, and feeders do not always attract deer, although they are great for hogs. Because of the feeder issue, set up on a trail(s) or high use deer area. Hunt hard the first week of the season. Deer appear quicker to go nocturnal, than other areas of the state. There is often deer movement at mid day. I am on a lease in Morris County. I have harvested about one deer/year on the lease. Only one of the deer was shot at a feeder.

Awesome buck, congrats! Almost sounds like public land hunting odds and tactics! Way to go!

Congrats on all

Congratulations on your buck and that's a sweet point you found (possible Hardaway), nice material for this region.

Have patience. You are indeed in a very good place to hunt. Houston country produces some really nice bucks every year and the area around your property as well (Ratcliff area IIRC).

Hunting East Texas (Pineywoods) and especially the National Forest area is completely different than most other places as you have discovered. It's not that the deer are not there....its just a matter of being out there at the right time to see them.

We have very small windows of opportunity when the bucks are really traveling. Generally late October to the first couple of weeks in November. Again around the 1st of December. Then late season (late December and muzzleloader season in Jan.) they are searching for food and trying to recover from the rigors of the rut.

You will NOT see big bucks around feeders in East Texas, nor will you see herds of deer like in South Texas or Central Texas...BUT we do have large bodied deer with good genetics and mature deer will be something you won't have to think about twice before pulling the trigger.

Deep East Texas is a much easier place to hunt if live on your property or can visit often. Much more so than just popping in a few times a year to hunt. But the potential to see/take a really nice buck in that area is always there.

Congrats! East Texas is certainly a patience game… we call it beast or famine. Just never know!

Thanks to everyone for their nice and helpful comments! This wasn't the most points or widest spread on a deer I've shot by any means but I think this guy will mean more to me than the others. I really missed hunting for those ten years. The last two years I have gotten some bigger ones on camera almost all at night, but I hope by listening to what different approaches work in East Texas and experiences yall have had, I will eventually get one of the big boys. Actually, this year I saw the most bucks and does I have seen in the last three years during the season. However, two years ago I saw 12 to 14 bucks in one bachelor group a week or so into January right by the back of the house. Of course, almost all were smaller young bucks just taunting me!

Flint, I looked it up and I think you might be right about that point being a Hardaway. I hope it is because they are much older transitional paleo/early archaic at 8000 to 10,500 years before present.

It isn't classic Hardaway...but certain features of it lead me think it is a transitional piece between Hardaway and Palmer (Palmer usually lacking the concave base after some period).




Nice find in any case. Love that material.

That is a fine East Texas buck, congratulations

Man...I've hunted deer in TX, MS, AL, GA and SC... And only watching feeders in TX. Your buck would be a trophy in my book in any of the states I hunted. Understated how this deer would mean more to you...RIGHT ON. Cool about your dad's rifle too.

That arrowhead is something else, still in great shape! Congrats