Hunting in Tom Green 'win-win'

By JOHN BOYD, Staff Writer
October 29, 2005

Tom Green County lies on the cusp of the state's best whitetail deer-hunting regions.

The Edwards Plateau, which curves to the county's south and encompasses much of what is known as Central Texas, produced both the highest number of kills and highest hunter success rate during the 2004 season.

South Texas also had a high hunter success rate, and those successes were big. Of the 14 Texas bucks killed in 2004 that qualified for Boone & Crockett ''monster buck'' status, 11 were killed in a seven-county area near the Mexico border.

So where does that leave Tom Green County, just outside the boundaries of both?

''Those transition zones tend to get the best of both worlds,'' said Mitch Lockwood, director of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department's whitetail program. ''It's really a win-win.''

Rather than focusing on any one region for whitetail hunting, Lockwood recommends looking at a prospective hunting land's wildlife management program. A truly big buck takes three things, Lockwood said - age, genetics and nutrition.

South Texas landowners make sure their whitetail have all three, which is why the region has long led the big buck category. Whitetails love foraging on the area's leaves and twigs, said Texas Cooperative Extension wildlife specialist Dale Rollins.

Perhaps surprisingly, many South Texas counties allow hunters to harvest more bucks than in other areas - three per season rather than the standard two.

Landowners in South Texas have protected their bounty from higher harvest rates, however, by limiting lessees to only one or two bucks on private lands. Often, it's the older, bigger, more cagey bucks that lie low and stay out of a rifle's crosshairs, bettering the gene pool the next mating season.

Increased focus on game management and the near-eradication of predators have led to an increase in big bucks in the Hill Country and Central Texas portions of the Edwards Plateau, as well. High deer populations haven't been entirely positive, though.

Lockwood, like many wildlife experts, believes high populations will choke out long-term growth in the region as food scarcity becomes a larger problem. Lockwood advises any hunter who finds a doe in his or her scope and a free tag to spare to take the shot.

''We've got to get those harvests up,'' he said.