Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Deer Season '23/'24 Comments

I was worried about our deer population since we have been in a pretty serious drought for 2.5 years and our ponds and creek have all gone dry.

I put out 100# of corn in my two gravity feeding tubes (so only the deer get fed) and it was all gone in four days! I guess the deer are still around in good numbers. (Most of my cameras were still in storage, so I didn't get any good observations.)

I did deepen one of our groundwater ponds this fall so all of the wildlife would have access to water. I had a camera up on the watering hole, and the deer decided it was a good spot for some late night parties!

It will be interesting to sit in the deer stand this season and observe the current state of all of the wildlife on our property.

I've been seeing a lot of decent bucks. Have yet to draw blood though.

Those are some handsome boys in your pics!

Are you a bow hunter? Probably have to put in some blind time to get the big, smart ones to come to you.

Good luck!

Looking at those antlers makes we want to post a picture of some of the common antlers on our property.



That is a 6-point buck with those tiny things on his head! (Sorry, I don't have a good shot to show his body size.)

However, every year I have lots of medium-sized bucks with tiny 4-point and 6-point antlers on their heads.

I don't know if these are young bucks that will have bigger racks in future years, or if I just have some genetics in the population for tiny antlers?

Doesn't matter that much to me, but I do like learning how "nature works" if anyone has some enlightening comments.

(I do have a pic of one big-bodied 10-point at the pond. Hopefully, I can get out this weekend and start getting all of my cameras up and see what is really out there!)

Rod,

Its been 30 years since I hunted in OK but back then we checked deer in at a DOW station. Often there was a biologist present and I agreed to and later asked them to age the deer. They used a tool to pull the lower jaw and could age the deer by assessing the wear of the teeth. The most points I have ever seen on a year and half old buck was 10. Small rack but I was told that the buck had a lot of potential had it been allowed to grow up. I read somewhere that a buck needs to at least fork in its year and a half year in order to have good potential. If you can learn to age from the teeth ... you will be able to answer your question.

Back then I harvested all the bucks and does allowed with gun and muzzleloader. I hunted sandy soil blackjack country on a parcel my dad owned and lime country tall grass prairie. What I can tell you is that these habitats grew entirely different deer. In the blackjack country, the racks were basket shaped and much smaller and the deer were smaller too. Up north on the prairie the antlers spread and were much larger ... as also were the deer. Environment does make a difference, I think.

As a teenager, there were much fewer deer and my dad absolutely did not tolerate passing opportunities for bucks. It was driven so hard that I never overcame it and I always have harvested the best of an initial opportunity. The hunt, the kill, gutting, packaging, and eating make a pretty good experience too. But of course the most memorable are the couple I harvested that had impressive racks.

We can hunt hogs with neither limits or seasons. And Texas is butt deep in them. We consider them vermin. I can no longer plant winter wheat patches for deer and small game. Pigs root them up like a breaking plow went through. I re bait my pig trap about every 60 days. I’ve eliminated plenty but they have a lot of babies. They are also loaded with ticks. Grandson, (21 yoa, 6’4”) and his buddy caught a bunch and butchered them. A couple of days later my grandson started running a high fever. He was hospitalized and we almost lost him. Docs couldn’t figure out a specific diagnosis but figure it must have been a tick bite from butchering the pigs.

I don’t allow grandsons to shoot coyotes. Why?

A couple of years ago I was deer hunting near a corn feeder. A bunch of pigs showed up but I didn’t shoot. I can hunt them 365 days and I don’t like to fire a shot unless the right wall hanger buck shows up. Suddenly, a coyote blew by, grabbed a piglet, and kept on going. The pigs erupted and lit out. At that time, I decided that the yotes were on my side. I know they will take fawns but I have a whole lot more pigs than deer for them to feed on.

Grandson deer hunted yesterday. He saw 8 pigs, 1 coyote and a buck that wasn’t mature. Seems about right; 8 to 1 ratio of corn thieves.

Thanks jpsdad. Mine are mostly "prairie deer" so I would expect them to be less spikey!

We do not harvest enough bucks to get a good grasp on teeth wear versus rack and body size. I think I need to do that for bucks and does! Kind of like keeping RW records for a pond.

Can't evaluate your management without data.

Thanks DD1.

I remember your coyote/piglet story and have repeated it to some of my Texas and Oklahoma buddies that have hogs!

I know you HATE this map, but I thought I should probably post a copy to Pond Boss.




A series of that same map data over 5-year intervals would be very informative in showing how far and fast the feral hogs have spread.

P.S. I hope your grandsons have some successful hunts this season!

They sure must love Texas compared with New Mexico.

Agreed.

Clearly a sampling artifact, reporting artifact, etc.

(And always remember, as Abraham Lincoln said, "87% of all things posted on the internet are incorrect!")




Personally, I like it that the hogs also seem a little bit scared to leave Oklahoma and set foot in Kansas.

Good point Theo! Just like those no guns allowed signs preventing robberies, NM must have no hogs allowed signs at its border preventing the hogs from crossing.

Got a cellular trail cam picture of the best buck I've seen on our property this season so far - at 1:35 this afternoon. Ruth is kicking in and bucks getting more active maybe. Had a bobcat on same camera at 6:30 this morning and a whole bunch of raccoons at various times last night and so far tonight.

I almost bowhunt exclusively. Even bow hunt through rifle season even though the tag is good for firearms. I mostly hunt from the ground, no blinds and only a few stands. I plant food plots but don't hunt them. I think it all helps with seeing more older bucks.

The deer on your place should be able to grow bigger racks than the 6pt you posted. I'd imagine they are there, unless you have neighbors that lease to outfitters bring in new people every weekend and decimating the older buck population. Or maybe someone is dumping out several tons of corn. Otherwise you should have bucks bigger than pictured. Good luck this season!

Do you also hunt upland birds at your property?

We had bobcats move into our place a few years back. Surprisingly, it made our bird hunting much better! However, my closest neighbor had about 20-40 feral cats at his place. I think they were eating our quail and pheasant chicks. I believe the bobcats made short work of the feral cats.

So now I have no clue about the impact of bobcats during "normal" conditions?

If they eat pocket gophers, raccoons, and armadillos, then they would still be a net positive on our property.

No. No pheasants or armadillos around here. Used to have some quail long ago. I saw one hen with chick's this summer. None since.

We do have bigger bucks and I have a heavy-body 10pt on the game cam at our little pond already. However, when people post pics of big groups of deer at their feeders (when they are not just posting the trophies), I NEVER see a group of spindly antler bucks like I see at our place. However, maybe it is just observation bias since that is the place where I currently get 99% of my data.

We also have a neighbor that is catty-corner that runs a big camp at the start of rifle season. They lease other properties and drive around the county roads on their ATVs like a swarm of bees. I believe they may have cut one of my fences that is adjacent to a little watering hole and feeder they have set up on a lease to lure some deer from my heavy cover onto their land. That many guys gunning for trophy bucks probably does affect our population to some degree!

Hard to control neighbors.

From The Gettysburg Address, which Abe gave right after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor!

Been seeing some good bucks on the trail cams. Misery's firearms regular season started yesterday.
All of our freezers are full so I didn't even buy tags. After 30+ years working as a RN, Mrs. Augie hates
deer with a passion. She's seen a lot of lives ruined by car/deer crashes. She's usually done by 8:30
on opening day but didn't have a shot she liked so they got to walk. She's still out there this morning
so it seems today is more of the same.

It won't hurt my feeling if she doesn't shoot one. Jalapeno/cheese Slim Jims are up to $4.75lb at the
locker plant now. I like deer sticks, but I don't like em that much.

Agreed!

That is why I get some wise people advice on Pond Boss for the things I CAN control on our property.

Just checked trail cams. 1 really nice buck passed by stand during shooting time last night. Would have been easy shot if had been there with crossbow. Another nice buck passed by same stand this morning during shooting time.

Person who owns some land close by out right now with guy who has bloodhound and finds wounded deer for people. Apparently, the guy stuck an arrow into a "monster buck" yesterday evening and couldn't find it. Haven't heard if they've found it in last couple hours or not. Guy with bloodhound has recovered some otherwise lost big ones.

Great story about the bloodhound search assists!

I have asked local deer hunters (that are far more experienced than I am) about using dogs to find lost deer. They all said they have never heard of such a thing. It seems like a wise thing to me!


Good luck bagging one of those big bucks the next time they make the mistake of wandering past your stand!

I still haven't heard if they found it; but they're getting pretty common aroubd here.

https://www.unitedbloodtrackers.org/find-a-tracker/

Great link, Rangersedge!

There is one guy within 5 miles of our property.

That is a good resource to have available as several of the deer hunters at my place are starting to transition to bow hunting. (I have found two large buck carcasses at our property at the start of rifle season when no one was bow hunting at our place. I assume the bucks were wounded during archery season on adjacent land and worked over to my quieter area.)

A good friend of ours had two days to hunt in between business trips. He got this nice buck on our farm the first morning.
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