How was Your Deer Season??????

I hunt in Edwards County near Rocksprings, Tx. Our deer season this year was one on the worst we have seen in the past 10 years. Deer were not coming to the feeders and corn was on the ground all season long. I believe it was because of the warm weather all season and the abundant acorn crop we had this year.

Please tell me how your season went in the Hill Country and why you think it was so poor this year.

Should be a great 2020 Season!!!!

Terrible here. Jack County. No deer seen during the day. Cameras showed them at the feeders at night. One nice buck. Maybe next year

Horrible

Never got out...hope to make spring turkey

Terrible. Just terrible.

Worst I can remember on seeing deer, but I still had a good time.

Please let me know what County you are hunting when you reply. Thanks....

Terrible

Best one yet!! Didn't shoot (Haven't shot in 6 years) but spent a lot of time in the woods with my son and he shot 2 nice ones! Also got to meet Don K which was a huge bonus!!

I'm not in the Hill country but in more the rolling plains. This year was one of the best we have had. Now last year was horrible in my area kind of like they way you are describing in yours this year. We also don't have oak trees in my area either so no acorns to deal with. Better luck next year. Stonewall County.

Northern Jack county was great. Deer didn’t go to feeders much, but they were moving quite a bit when the weather was cool.

Concho county was terrible. Deer came to the feeders, (we don’t have oak trees) but mostly doe and young bucks. We didn’t see a mature buck all season. We had 4 or 5 at the end of ‘18 season

But, I hunted every weekend and had a great time

Freestone county MLD3 ... seen deer on every sit almost, mostly young to middle age bucks, been leaving does alone (took 1) until later (freeing up freezer space). I think I am up to 8 or 9 hogs, 1 coyote.

Crockett county ... only went out a couple of time mainly to do game count surveys to see if impacted by anthrax in the area, still lots on game cam and doesn't seem to have been impacted, saw a number of young-middle age bucks but few does/fawns in person, no shots fired.

Burnet county ... see lots on game cam a couple of huge for the area, only a few in person, younger-middle age bucks and few does, mostly shooting hogs on sight.

still have some hunting time left (this weekend in Burnet) and thru end of Feb. in Freestone. Had some fun times around camp, cooking, eating, BSing and spending time in the woods.

Congratulations to your son! Great job! He looks proud as he should be!

Thanks Amos!

Great pics WTW!!

Very tough in Kendall county near boerne.

Managed to scratch out a few bow kills on culls but overall it was very poor

Lots of deer few shooters.

No good for me. Hill and bosque counties

Parker County was great for me until the acorns let loose. Still saw lots of deer but didn't stay at the feeders. Never could get the boy on one.

Looked good early in the gun season in Erath county but they seemed to go nocturnal after Christmas. Hunting for does in extended season.

Sucked bad for me!

Great in Schliecher county. Lots of deer and great lease buds. Looking forward to next season.

Crockett county....... Anthrax terrible year

Most comments seem to indicate a bad year with 2 factors mentioned most. More young deer seen and the abundant acorn crop.
Have thoughts on what else may have affected your poor hunt?

Osage county in OK. Tons of Acorns...but then again, we don't hunt feeders up there, we hunt the oaks. We did see fewer deer, but I think that was more based on timing than anything else.

Navarro County in TX, we have corn, protein feeders, and planted plots. Saw plenty of deer, but we are seeing fewer mature deer than in the past. We do have more hunters around us now than in the past too, so it seems that they are just getting shot, and had nothing to do with acorns. My boy and my Mother-in-law both scored.

Excellent year for me. Extremely blessed to be invited to my best friends uncle’s ranch and shot this stud near Rocksprings. Also shot a nice 10 point near Junction this year too with Clay Pope. All LF deer on small properties! Always saw good numbers of deer every hunt.

If it makes anyone feel any better, I had felt this season was pretty crappy for deer sightings. My father still took a nice buck and our guests got 4 does, but we didn't seem to have the volume of deer hitting the feeders/food plots as we had experienced the previous year. We had some game cam pics last season with 15+ deer crowded around a feeder. This season I don't think we had more than 7 on any single cam pic. My father and I were wondering if the population had dropped or moved onto another area... or if our neighbors had over-harvested.

I went out last weekend and spent 5 hours in the blind Friday evening with my thermal to see what activity looked like after dark. I was shocked.

Turns out the deer simply weren't hitting the feeders. I counted 18 deer in one of our food plots. Couldn't believe my eyes. Looking at the game cam pics of the nearby feeder - it appeared only three deer had shown up when really there were 15 more in the field outside of the field of view of the game cam.

Seems like corn was not their food of choice this season. Simply comparing game cam pics and field sightings from the 2018 season vs 2019 season - it appeared to be a slow season. Reality is the deer just didn't go after the corn like they did last season.

Fun 1st season learning a new ranch; 'happier'n a pig in slop. Just finished our "doe smack", taking 11 mouths (and future mouths) off the place with the help of two good friends on here, plus one buddy that's, for all practical purposes, another brother of mine. One of them made a helluva a spot..."my" 10 point came "home" the hard way:



Who knows what happened to him. 'Coulda been any number of things. But the Scottish blood in me will...from this day forward...always and forever...blame the Cajuns nextdoor. (He was maybe 300 yards from the common fence with them.)

We had a good year in NW Jack County. We saw deer all season and killed a few. We killed a few hogs, but we didn't see a fraction of what we did last year.

Hey I think I might recognize that guys boots in the photo.....

I just finished a great season in my books...took my best mule deer ever, a good whitetail off my place and top it all off I got to hunt a lot with good friends. The whole year from first of Jan 2019 till end of Dec 2019 was probably one of my best hunting season ever.

It was a good season here early (Limestone County). I filled the freezer with doe, and the grandson got a nice buck. Like a lot of you guys, the deer just quit showing up late in the season. It sure wasn’t because we shot em all. I saw a bunch of nice bucks before the season and early in the season, and could have killed a couple, but I let them pass. Later I wondered if somebody else had shot them, but my neighbor told me yesterday that he had just seen 3 big well-antlered bucks heading into the back of my place. So I guess they just hid and ate acorns, and now I still have my herd breeding bucks, and that makes me happy. I hope one of them was the really nice 8 point I passed on several times. He’s a beautiful buck.

Best season ever! My son and my brother and I all got nice bucks on our lease - the first year for us all to get one. Can't beat that! Oh and I also got my PB and did it with a crossbow, so there's that too

And with the sightings and pics we got this year of bucks that lived through season, next year should be even much mo' bettah!!

Worst for bucks. No one on ours or 3 leases next to us killed one. I saw two shooters but no shots. Action was very early. I setup a video cam on scrapes and the bucks I saw never went to a feeder so would had to change setups. We got some doe though and will be out there tomorrow for youth weekend.

And that is a good looking ten.

Tough in Wood County. I have not seen a buck except on camera. I have 3 doe I have seen numerous times, but just hate to take one. See so few as it is. Started to try to take one yesterday with the muzzle, but just didn’t. Got two decent spikes on camera I hope to see this evening or tomorrow.

real good

Hard hunting season in San Saba county. Abundant acorns and warm weather lowered the deer and hog sightings, so that meant you had to put allot of hours in the stand to get your animals. All of our hunters eventually got want they wanted, but you just had to work harder at it this year.

Great year very blessed !

I guess I'll say my season was slow. I hunt with PMK (dad) in freestone county. Had a good doe/fawn showing, all the way up until the rut. We left the does alone since we still had A LOT of fawns still nursing in early season. Only had a couple of mature bucks on cam, but never got to put a scope on one. Shot a couple of pigs and a coyote.

I took my 3 Y.O. boy with me once, to which we had a younger 10 point get hung up in the fence. I took my boy with me down to the fence, and looked the deer over, thinking even though his hind leg was cut pretty good, he should probably make it....until i turned him loose and realized his leg was broke. I sure hate shooting younger bucks, but he would have been coyote meat, so i popped him right there in front of my boy. It was a really positive outcome though, because I taught my 3 year old a pretty good lesson about everything that had just happened. He soaked it all in and it was a good learning experience for him. He loved every bit of it.

Will be getting back out more before the end of February, so we still have a little over a month left.

Out of curiosity, how old do you estimate this buck, is it the young 10 that got hung up, to be?

Yup. This was the one that got hung up. We aged him at 3.5.

Still going on, but pretty good so far. No one has been hurt, a lot of humbling experiences, some friendships made stronger and some beautiful moments of heaven on earth. Only two more does to go and then it's time to make sausage. The circle will become complete soon.

Good in regards to filling the freezer! No giant bucks. Did shoot a respectable 9 pt. Tom Green/Sterling Counties.

We saw a ton of deer early. Mid November till the end of season they went nocturnal. We waited too late and only took a couple of does. Hope next year is different.

Great like always!

Can't complain. I teach HS and dont have much tiime to hunt, I took a cull mulie that provided the burger I need for the year. It was a free deer so that is always good.

I thought high school teachers would have plenty of time to hunt. Teachers aren’t on call much are they.

Hunted in November during the big cold front and shot my biggest deer ever!

San Saba County outside of Richland Springs - very odd/off year for me. Number of deer sighted during hunts down probably 75%...got downright excited just to see a doe every 3rd hunt. Almost zero interest in feeders all season - had to turn down all feeders after the first week due to uneaten corn on the ground.

I teach JROTC and work more than half the saturdays. That cuts into the hunting time.

I can echo what most have said here. Not seeing very many deer. Some nocturnal camera activity. Not coming to feeders. In fact, I sat one evening and watched 4 doe graze the foot plot just adjacent to the feeder. They were too young to harvest. Lots of good activity on camera late summer into fall. Thought it was going to be a good season.

3 of our 5 hunters have gotten a deer this year. Two decent 8 points and a doe. We are all thinking the same thing others have said here. Warm winter, abundant browse not getting frozen, etc.

This is in Taylor county south of Abilene. MLD 3 so still have some opportunities left.

-Oklahoma- My first time to hunt Oklahoma and this place is big with big bucks and extremely lightly hunted but the acorn crop was one for the ages and with acorn trees everywhere it made it tough.
-NW Texas- Ive ran this large lease for many years and by most hunters standards its very good year in and year out. This year was probably our best year ever. Of course those mesquite trees don't drop acorns. We had good rain when we needed it(last fall winter spring) and then it slowed so the deer got hungry and really came to corn and food plots all year. We would see more deer than most years and more bucks than most years. About a third of our guys bow hunt but we have never killed a Trophy buck during Oct. This year we killed 4 in Oct ranging from mid 160s to mid 130s.. Total for the year we killed 8 big enough to qualify for TBGA. Its interesting cause even though we knew we had good horn growth we all thought the number of older age bucks would still be down from low fawn crops of the drought years a ways back. I guess the older deer we had just got hungry, as well as we have gotten a lot better at killing the ones we have. The years after the drought years we had good to great fawn crops so we have tons of deer that are 4 yo and younger so it was a battle holding off on some real good 4s. Our only downside is we probably have TOO MANY deer and we have not been killing enough. We will see how that turns out going forward.
From reading others comments and talking to a lot of hunters as well as my own experiences I would summarize by saying that it you had a lot of acorns you probably had very slow deer movement but otherwise in most other areas of the State it was better than average.

Gave up the place I was on so did not hunt there, was offered to hunt with another friend but they have to many people already on a small place so for the first time in forever I did not hunt.
And as much as love hunting it did not bother me very much, I guess because I still have plenty of meat in the freezer.

Next year

We had several deer go down so only 3 trophies on the list for 7 hunters. We took all 3 and the smallest was a 161” 8 point.

This is mexico