Deer hunters out in force

Seeing some movement, few fawns

By Craig Nyhus, Lone Star Outdoor News

The excitement of opening day is a feeling of its own. Even though archery and Managed Lands Deer Permit hunters have been out for a month, most Texas hunters mark November’s first weekend on their calendars.

As usual, even though the hunting may not have been great for a majority of those in the field, others found success. An explosion of vegetation after heavy rains in late August and early September kept deer away from feeders, while areas receiving less rain were still suffering through drought conditions.

Some hunters found the deer moving, especially younger bucks chasing does, figuring something is up but not really sure what. Rutting activity was reported in Bosque County, Hays County and Tom Green County.

Redchevy posted on the Texas Hunting Forum that he suspects there was some rutting between San Antonio and Austin.

“Drove from San Antonio to Austin and back today — saw six roadkill deer all on 35 in New Braunfels. Five were young bucks.”

For Marley Harrison, 13, opening day became the day she harvested her first deer on her father’s lease in Callahan County.

“It took a couple of trips, but we got it done at the lease on opening morning,” her father, Conor, said.

Marley was out during the youth weekend and Conor said the wind was perfect out of the north.

“We only saw a few spikes and some does,” he said. “She wanted to wait for something bigger.”

On opening morning, the father-daughter left at 4 a.m. to get to the lease in time. But the forecasted west wind turned straight south — totally wrong for the blind they were in.

“We saw nothing for the first hour,” Harrison said. “Then a few does came out, stuck their noses in the air and left. We were planning to get out of there.”

Then Marley saw a pair of bucks walking across the field, about 230 yards away.

“I pulled out a grunt call, which for me usually doesn’t work,” Conor said. “I grunted three time and he started running.”

Marley’s eyes widened.

“He’s coming toward us, dad,” she said. When the buck got to 70 yards, her dad grunted again and the buck stopped, almost broadside.

“Shoot him in the shoulder,” Conor said.

Marley pulled the trigger of her .243 and the buck, her first deer, was down.

One thing hunters in many areas did notice. They weren’t seeing any fawns.

MLD landowners, where deer surveys are performed, already knew the fawn crop was low in many areas of the state, especially to the west.

Bruce Klingman said he had virtually no fawn on his property near Baird in Callahan County,

Harrison said they had the same situation.

“We’re not seeing any,” he said. “But we had good recruitment for the last 4 years so we’ll be OK.”

In Mitchell County, one large ranch got the bad news after a helicopter survey. The fawn die-off was worse than expected, nearly 100 percent. Only two fawns were seen when there should have been 100, and the biologist felt the ranch also lost adult deer.

While the area is wet now, the rains came

too late for the fawns.
Another Llano County rancher said the

fawn crop was 5 percent or less. Similar reports came from Stephens County and Dickens County. In Young County, one hunter said he had only seen one fawn all summer. In Coke County, the fawn crop was described as nonexistent nearly county-wide.

In Mills County, QuitshootinYoungBucks reported on the Texas Hunting Forum that the fawn crop was about 1/3 of average.

“There’s plenty of food for the deer that are left,” he said.