Officials say season could be best ever

Mild winters, wet springs contribute to high deer count

By MATT PHINNEY mphinney@sastandardtimes.com or 659-8253, Staff Writer
October 29, 2005

Greg Simons has watched deer this year from the air, the ground and a hunting blind, and one thing is for certain: There's plenty out there.

Simons, owner of Wildlife Systems Inc. in San Angelo, has been an outfitter for the last 19 years. He hunts 400,000 acres statewide and about 75,000 acres of whitetail country within a 60-mile radius of San Angelo.

So far this year, he has conducted population counts from an airplane, has scouted on foot and led some hunts with managed-land deer permits, which allow landowners involved in a formal management program to have a flexible hunting season to allow for increased harvest opportunities.

He has found it's shaping up to be one of the best hunting years ever in this area.

''It's looking very good,'' he said. ''It has the potential to be as good, or better, than last year, and last year was above average for this area. We are in a position, if Mother Nature and the deer cooperate, to end up having a better whitetail season than we have had in some time.''

Two years of mild winters, wet springs and average summers have made deer numbers high this year. And that abundance of forage has produced some pretty impressive antlers.

It also has allowed does to produce many healthy fawns, said Ruben Cantu, San Angelo-based Texas Parks and Wildlife regional director for wildlife.

Kenny McCrea, owner of McCrea Outdoors, has already taken some clients on successful hunts. He has helped harvest a 10-point buck that scored 167 inches on a trophy scale, which means the width, diameter and length of the antlers measured at several chosen places totals 167 inches. He also helped take a 13-point buck that scored 155 and a 16-point buck that scored 160 1/8 inches.

McCrea Outdoors hunts 50,000 acres - some locally and one ranch in the Panhandle.

''It's going to be a phenomenal year,'' he said. ''The deer are in such good shape, and we've had good conditions. A lot of the nutrition is going to antler development.''

San Angelo received 30.48 inches of rain last year, its wettest year since 1987. The city has received 19.67 inches this year, a little more than the normal of 18.87 inches through October.

The foliage, which had grown lush under spring rains, had been drying up. More recent rains have produced an abundance of green undergrowth, Simons said.

Any more rain could make the deer a little harder to hunt, he said.

''Green vegetation means groceries for deer,'' he said. ''Then they don't have to go look around for forage because the groceries are more readily available, and they don't respond to feeders. Hunters rely on feeders to get the deer together so they can get a look at them.''

Hunters across Texas last year harvested 433,387 whitetails out of a population that reaches nearly 4 million, according to the ESPN Outdoors Web site. A county-by-county breakdown was not available.

Figures for 2005 won't be collected until early fall, according to the site. But the seasonal forecast should make any hunter happy.

''In a state blessed with nearly 4 million whitetails and scores of record book bucks on the prowl, there is rarely, if ever, a bad deer hunting year in the Lone Star State of Texas,'' according to the site.

Locally, deer populations vary from ranch to ranch, said outfitter Skipper Duncan, owner of Adobe Lodge Hunting Camp in San Angelo. They range from one deer for 7.7 acres to one deer for more than 25 acres. An average is about one deer for 16 to 17 acres, he said.

Abundant forage and many landowners' comprehensive management programs have improved the quality of bucks in the area.

Many landowners choose to feed protein cubes to their deer during the summer to increase antler size. The protein cubes, generally soybean meal and alfalfa pellets, are designed to keep deer in excellent condition.

The cubes are generally poured into large feeding bins, much like a rancher would feed livestock.

Others take meticulous records of deer numbers to ensure the pasture is not overgrazed by wildlife. West Texas has so many deer that it wouldn't take much dry weather before deer numbers exceeded a safe carrying capacity, Cantu said.

''It's a double-edge sword,'' he said. ''It sounds great there are so many animals in good physical condition, but you have to make room for them. Being that we never know when the next drought is coming, we don't know what that number is.''

Determining a proper carrying capacity depends on native vegetation on the ground, Duncan said. Larger deer are generally found where landowners feed protein, he said, but that costs money.

Only a landowner or hunter can determine whether a trophy animal is worth of the cost of feed, he said.

''There are people that can walk across the ground and get a sense of how many deer per acre there should be on the place,'' he said. ''That's knowledge I don't have. It's a skill many of us don't have. It's like an old-time rancher who has to decide how many cows he should have on his place.''