I’m gonna go on record to say that chart on Texas deer Is a little misleading. First, I don’t know how the numbers were compiled since we have no reporting obligations to the TPWD. Second, the areas are very broad and the deer are very diverse within those areas. For instance, the area I’m most familiar with is the Piney Woods. That takes up most of East Texas, I would be in the northern end of that. In what we call Deep East Texas the main source of income for many, many people is pine timber. You either grow it or are involved in the end product in some way. There are literally thousands of acres owned by timber companies and most are leased to hunters. I hunted one such place for about four years that was owned by an individual who bought it from International Paper when they sold all their land. It is 16,000 acres. The harvest goal there was a five year old buck or older. The guy that leased 5,000 acres of it is a friend of mine, and a former customer. I hunted by invitation but I did a lot of mowing every year because I don’t like to “free ride”. I told all that to say that there were lots, and I mean lots, of 130 to 140 inch bucks on that lease. There were some that size and bigger killed every year. I imagine in that four year period I let a half dozen 130” bucks walk. I also let two bigger ones get away from me because they didn’t offer a clean shot. I wasn’t there to shoot a 130” deer, and I didn’t hunt very much as it was a pretty good drive for me I had two more places to hunt of my own as well. Several times I had the thought, upon seeing a “nice” buck, “Buddy, if you were on my place you’d be in trouble”.
I’m basically a meat hunter, but I don’t kill anything less than 3.5, that’s about as far as I go toward QDM, that and I don’t shoot many does, about one every other year on my place, and none on my lease. To be honest, the chart probably is pretty well right about the area I live in, but there aren’t very many places here that will go over a couple hundred acres, and plenty smaller than that. That doesn’t bode well for big, mature bucks.
I also had a lease for 18 years in the Post Oak Savannah, and on our lease the chart is pretty close, but just 15/20 miles to the S of us there were much better bucks to be had. Every year the local grocery store had a big buck contest and it was always won by someone who hunted in Palo Pinto County, which was just S of us in Runnels County.
In South Texas, there are many large ranches, some high fenced, but many low fenced also. Almost every place is leased and almost everyone feeds protein year round. Many leases have a 6 to 7 year old minimum on bucks. There are some really big bucks produced on those low fenced properties. I just don’t think you can generalize without taking everything into consideration, ie: property size, supplemental feeding, management, etc.
