Just my luck !

[Drycreek]

I took a friend to hunt Friday afternoon in Trinity Co. on a place that I hunt sometimes. We were both trying to take a doe, which is normally pretty easy there. I saw nothing Friday afternoon except a 175 lb. boar hog and needless to say he was not happy to see me. My buddy saw three young bucks.


Saturday morning we got in well before daylight and about 7:15 the parade started. With my eyesight and the deer being about 120 yards away, I thought the first one was a doe. Just as I was reaching for my binos the second and third deer walked out. I could see antlers on the third and knew before I put the glasses up that they all were, but the binos confirmed it. When all the deer were in the plot I counted ten bucks from spikes to a nice should-have-been 135ish except his right main beam was missing from the G2 on. I first thought it was an abnormality but further glassing confirmed it was broken off. I kinda think it might have broken during the velvet stage because the end was as dark as his tarsal glands. It certainly was not recent and was rounded off and not jagged or splintered in any way. I eventually saw him from about 25/30 yards as he walked right by me when he left.

About 10:20 I heard a distant shot and my buddy texted that he had killed a doe, so I gathered my possibles and headed his way. As it takes an hour to an hour and a half to get to him, get the deer to the headquarters, skin, quarter, do paperwork, pull jawbone, etc. we were 1:30 or so getting into town and getting ice on the deer. I had accomplished my main goal because he hadn’t had a legal deer in front of him the whole season and I wasn’t worried too much about getting another as I’m going axis hunting in March anyway and a doe is just about guaranteed there.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many whitetails in one wad and no targets......just my luck !

 

[THE LLC]

Man, I'd LOVE to go axis deer hunting!!! Just sayin'.

 

[Drycreek]

Man, I'd LOVE to go axis deer hunting!!! Just sayin'.

What I do would better be described as grocery shopping. It’s a fairly small high fenced place, but it’s enjoyable for a couple days for my wife and I on spring break. She’s the local high school librarian so it’s a nice getaway for her. He has many animals of several varieties and there’s hardly a time when there aren’t any in front of you. The fact that axis is delicious is a plus too !

 

[THE LLC]

Sounds like my kinda “hunting”. For exotics anyway.

 

[Mennoniteman]

This place in Trinity Co. that you hunt sometimes seems to have a great buck to doe ratio. Land managers are normally struggling with high doe numbers as a natural result of hunters only shooting bucks, higher buck numbers (at least 50/50) are the goal but difficult to maintain. Is this property being managed, or what is your opinion as to all those antlered deer in one location?

 

[Drycreek]

That’s a small area of a 16,000 acre place, and normally I see more does than bucks. Maybe not by a large margin though. My friend has 2,500 acres leased of the 16,000 and there are not a lot of does killed by us. We’re supposed to take bucks 5.5 or older but that’s not adhered to 100%. It is an MLDP property and the state distributes tags based on the owner’s census. We don’t use the tags on our licenses. They feed protein, shoot no spikes, probably fewer does than recommended, maybe even less bucks than recommended. We have to weigh field dressed deer, measure antlers, pull jawbones, and keep records. In that sense it’s managed. But hogs are rampant, as are coyotes and bobcats. Almost nothing is done to control them. In that sense, it’s not managed. From a purely anecdotal opinion, my observation, we don’t have great fawn survival. That’s probably just as well since we don’t shoot many deer. I don’t hunt there very much and I’ve never pointed my rifle at a buck except once in the four years I’ve hunted there. Couldn’t get an ethical shot on him so he ambled on out of my life. My threshold there is a sure ‘nuff jawdropper and I’ve passed several 130 class deer because they were only 4.5 IMO. I don’t pay to hunt there and don’t feel entitled.


Edit to add that deer stands are fairly far apart, these woods are thick, and there are deer there that we never see I’m certain. I know that several big bucks have been seen on camera that have never been seen by eyeballs. At least our eyeballs

 

[Mennoniteman]

That’s a small area of a 16,000 acre place, and normally I see more does than bucks. Maybe not by a large margin though. My friend has 2,500 acres leased of the 16,000 and there are not a lot of does killed by us. We’re supposed to take bucks 5.5 or older but that’s not adhered to 100%. It is an MLDP property and the state distributes tags based on the owner’s census. We don’t use the tags on our licenses. They feed protein, shoot no spikes, probably fewer does than recommended, maybe even less bucks than recommended. We have to weigh field dressed deer, measure antlers, pull jawbones, and keep records. In that sense it’s managed. But hogs are rampant, as are coyotes and bobcats. Almost nothing is done to control them. In that sense, it’s not managed. From a purely anecdotal opinion, my observation, we don’t have great fawn survival. That’s probably just as well since we don’t shoot many deer. I don’t hunt there very much and I’ve never pointed my rifle at a buck except once in the four years I’ve hunted there. Couldn’t get an ethical shot on him so he ambled on out of my life. My threshold there is a sure ‘nuff jawdropper and I’ve passed several 130 class deer because they were only 4.5 IMO. I don’t pay to hunt there and don’t feel entitled.


Edit to add that deer stands are fairly far apart, these woods are thick, and there are deer there that we never see I’m certain. I know that several big bucks have been seen on camera that have never been seen by eyeballs. At least our eyeballs

That place truly sounds like a deer managers paradise going to seed.

 

[Drycreek]

That place truly sounds like a deer managers paradise going to seed.

It is somewhat, but being leased land, about the only managing you can do is trigger managing. If everyone isn’t on the same page, that’s not even gonna have much effect.

 

[Mennoniteman]

It is somewhat, but being leased land, about the only managing you can do is trigger managing. If everyone isn’t on the same page, that’s not even gonna have much effect.

Predators can be managed on leased land, but it's one more thing that takes time. The new age biologists/ tree huggers dream is that predators keep wildlife populations in balance so that hunting can be done away with, leading to nature being perfectly balanced without humans cruelly killing animals. It sounds like this property is well on the way there. Just my random observations...