Thursday's Internet Edition, September 09, 2010.
big whitetail bucks?
|
You are hunting Hill Country on the Edwards Plateau, or more specifically, you are hunting near Rocksprings. While there have been two successive drought years, overall some of the early and late season rains, the supplemental feeding being done by some, and the heat stressed oaks acorn crop have provided better food sources than should have been expected this year and the deer you have seen appear healthy – which in fact they surprisingly are.
You have either hunted this area previously or you are here for the first time or as someone’s guest and you plan to kill a trophy deer. You have likely paid over $1000 to hunt whitetail this year, you have taken vacation time from your job and family, you have told family and friends your intentions, and your return home must include venison and a trophy rack. It is important to look good in the eyes of your peers and your family and it is your plan to look good.
Your hunting lease access, if it is through a responsible land owner, should have both deer size and number limits associated with your paid privilege to hunt there. However more often than not this is either not the case or you easily bend the rules as no one is checking on what you do there.
You are excited about the comradery and unlike last year, you have a really good feeling about the trophy deer you plan to shoot this year as do also the others in your camp.
The hunting season has probably progressed through Thanksgiving and on into Christmas and to the New Year’s holidays and you have seen fewer deer pass by your gun sights than you had anticipated. The season is nearly over and you are ready for the next deer that comes your way.
Some of you may have already shot what you are calling your ‘cull-buck’ – what the hell is that anyway – or your ‘management-buck’ – now that is an interesting concept as well. Let me elaborate a bit here:
A ‘cull buck’ is not simply a young or small deer, it is a deer with horns that show a character that will never be perceived as a good addition to the local gene pool. To quote from Dr. James Kroll’s web site ... “Ten years ago, I was working on an article about deer hunting in the Edwards Plateau. In the process of gathering information, I called one of the biologists with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Part of what he told me was that the average age of a buck shot in the Hill Country was 1 1/2 years. The bucks in that area were being shot as soon as they developed antlers of sufficient size to be visible from 100 yards or so.”
Unfortunately this practice does not appear to have changed much through the years!
John Wootters, who for over five decades has been a prolific sportsman, hunter, author, and naturalist as well as both my neighbor and friend, referred to a ‘management-buck’ as one that does not exhibit a rack configuration consistent with what you as a lease holder or land owner want your deer herd to look like; this deer may also be an older animal with declining rack development.
The underlying problem is that whatever you have decided to call it whether it be your ‘cull-buck’ or ‘management-buck, with some clear exceptions, your deer likely shouldn’t have ever been taken this year.
If you are after a trophy, wait for a trophy; if you want meat-shoot a spike or an early season doe. The bucks you shoot early in the season will never have the opportunity to pass their genes on to the next generation; the large disparity in doe to buck ratios also often means that if you shoot a late season doe you may have also killed off one of the few that are carrying the next generation’s trophy genes. Anyway, you will do what you will do and you now have your deer.
Your ‘cull-buck’ or ‘management-buck’, or more accurately your frustration buck or simply your conversation buck is that 2 1/2 year old 8 point something that is lying at your feet. If you had possessed the strength to resist peer pressure and had done the right thing, in 2 years or so this could have been your trophy buck. However, you don’t even feel a pang of regret over shooting this immature animal because if you had not, your rational is that someone else would have surely done it themselves.
Now back to the early question of, “Where are all of the big whitetail bucks?”
Well they are simply being killed off at least 2 years too soon and you and your pals helped to do it and with rare exception, you will do it again next year and the year after. You really knew the answer to this question but that did not keep you from asking it and you will foolishly ask the same question again next year – Where are all of the big whitetail bucks?
Is there a solution or ‘fix’ to this problem – likely not – as deer hunting is big business in Texas. While some counties have instituted a minimum inside dimension rack size that may benefit a buck’s chance to mature and become trophy size, it is really a matter of sportsmanship and trust that this be allowed to happen. Game wardens tend to be overextended and most landowners tend to turn a blind eye to the deer that are actually taken on their property as their main concern is the supplemental income derived from hunting.
Three years ago we found ourselves driving through Terrell County and stopped to talk with an individual whose entry gate was just off of HWY 163 near Juno Road. He was originally from New Jersey (not a critical point here) now living in Florida (also not critical) but he had recently purchased his 400 acres from a developer. While he had a well, which is unusual for Terrell County, this one was located conveniently near the road rather than farther inside the property; it was there, he said “...just so he and his wife could watch the raccoons play.”. Anyway, he took me into his garage and showed me his trophy buck form the previous year, which was actually quite a nice mature 8 point. He then showed me his successively smaller cull-buck for that year and then this year’s successively smaller trophy buck and, again, a successively smaller cull-buck. His comment was that deer hunting was going to hell in Texas and he had just called his brother to come out and shoot one before they were gone.
By now you should have some idea where I am going with this – our Texas Hill Country whitetail bucks are being killed as immature 11/2 to 2 1/2 year olds in many areas because hunters either do not understand or simply do not care about game management. At some point hunters must be held accountable for this by their peers but unfortunately, I do not see this happening in the near future. The general hunting mentality seems to be to shoot the best deer you see even if it is immature ignoring the fact that it likely needs another 2 or 3 years to become the prize trophy you really want to shoot.
In many portions of the Hill Country, free ranging trophy whitetail deer will return in numbers only if the hunter and landowner mentality allows that to happen. Landowners must set strict guidelines on the minimum size and limit the number of deer taken on their property and then make the effort to actively enforce these guidelines.
Frank Hamtak
Hackberry Creek Ranch
Rocksprings, Texas