I’m writing my column early in the week, actually late Sunday afternoon. This weekend was the opener of the general deer season here in Texas. Saturday marked the first day when hunters can take to the deer woods with center fire rifles, muzzleloaders, big bore air guns; any legal sporting arm.
I’ve hunted a bit in October on a friend’s ranch with TPWD managed land permits but have yet to harvest a deer. I hunt for meat as well as antlers, and to be honest, it’s just been too warm, too hot for me to get fired up about harvesting my meat from the wild.
I have several places to hunt this fall and winter and have no doubt I will have the opportunity to take three of four deer, which I hope includes a couple of fat doe as well as a mature bucks or two.
I would say I could care less about the antlers, but I’ve always said any deer hunter that says he or she doesn’t want to kill a heavily antlered buck is probably lying. When it comes to bucks, my goal is a mature animal that has reached its potential. I had much rather take an old buck on his way down that a good looking up and coming 2.5-year-old, but that’s just me.
With an earlier than usual opening day of Nov. 2 and unseasonably warm weather I decided to monitor several of my friends that hunted this weekend via cell phone. I was getting text messages from several guys hunting from deep east Texas, North Texas and the Hill Country and many of the texts went about like this: “It’s just too warm for much deer movement. I had a few does and a small buck come to the feeder. The rut is under way but I’m not seeing any bucks on the prowl. Sure wish it would turn cooler.”
One of my buddies did tag a big 10-pointer, so the old saying, “You can’t kill them at home in the rocking chair” does have some credence.
I was perfectly content manning my phone this weekend and serving as the command center, passing messages along to many of my friends, but by the time you read this, Ole’ Luke’s opening day will be upon us. The weatherman predicts highs in the 60s and nighttime lows in the high 40s by mid-week. Now this is more like deer hunting weather and I plan to be hunting with a good friend in Kaufman County.
I helped my friend Larry Weishuhn and the ranch owners with deer surveys on the ranch back in the summer and know there are some really good bucks roaming the bottomland and adjacent hardwoods up on the higher elevations. Trail cameras have evidenced some big heavy body mature bucks that might not qualify as trophies for many but for this old hunter, a heavy horned six-pointer with some age will fill the bill nicely.
I didn’t have the luxury of choosing when I wanted to hunt for much of my life but thanks to my work as a full-time outdoors writer and radio and TV host, I can now adjust my schedule to the best time to hunt and fish.
Weather is key in almost every aspect of the outdoors. I try to schedule my fishing trips around the weather. For instance, stripers at Texoma always bite best with a bit of chop on the water. A little wind is almost always a good thing for most types of fishing. This is not to say it’s impossible to catch fish on a dead calm day but from many hours on the water fishing for everything from bass to hybrid stripers, I have come to believe that a little wind is a very good thing, not a gale but a nice 5 to 10 mph breeze.
When it comes to deer movement, after about 62 years, give or take, in the deer woods, I have had my best luck by far on a cool day with a light wind. Frosty mornings are good, but not necessarily at the break of day. I’ve found deer seem to move best when the sun has melted the frost on a really cold morning but there are exceptions to every rule. I killed my biggest buck to date up in North Dakota on a frigid morning when everything was frozen. But deer up in that cold country don’t have a lot of options, if they waited for warm weather in the winter, they would starve to death.
The peak of the rut, which is about to begin any day now across much of the state, is prime time to be in the deer woods. Bucks are up actively pursuing does in any kind of weather to some extent, but they simply don’t move as much during daylight hours when the weather is warm. I’ve watched bucks trailing doe during the heat of the day and see both drop to the ground exhausted, tongues out and panting from the heat. Deer can see quite well at night and when it’s warm, they limit much of their activity to the cooler hours.
Similar to last year’s hunting season, TPWD biologists expect deer hunters throughout most of the state to have ample opportunities to fill their freezers. Much of the state received drought-quenching rain in the spring, which allowed for excellent habitat growth during the initial part of the growing season. Spring forb (weeds and flowering plants) production, which is a critical component of a deer’s diet coming out of winter, was abundant and offered essential nutrients to growing bucks, nursing does and newborn fawns.
Additionally, the improved habitat conditions earlier this year helped keep fawns healthy enough to survive their first few months (also known as fawn recruitment). Although this spring provided lush vegetation, with current drought conditions impacting most of the state, hunters should have plenty of opportunities to encounter deer as they search for native and supplemental food sources.
Since your old outdoor scribe spent the whitetail opener monitoring the hunts of several friends across the state, next week’s column will include a recap of my mid-week hunt when temperatures will be cooler and greatly increase chances at the harvest of a big buck. Weather predictions for the second weekend of deer season are currently calling for a continuation of the cooler weather.
My CVA Cascade rifle in 6.5 PRC topped on a Stealth Vision scope is shooting tight groups much farther out than I will have the opportunity to shoot. Wish me luck and know this: we’re now living in the ‘good old days’ of deer hunting. There is now more whitetail in the woods than any time in recent history.
Here’s wishing you a great season with antlers for the wall and backstrap in the skillet.
Listen to Luke’s weekly podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” anywhere podcasts are heard.
