Antler formationis said to be the most rapid growth known in the animal kingdom, but how does a white-tailed buck get such a huge quantity of minerals from his diet and into his antlers so rapidly? They don’t, but they do. Actually, white-tailed bucks get some of the minerals needed for antler growth from their diet and the remainder of the minerals needed from their internal reserves.

Since a buck can’t get all the raw material it needs for this rapid growth of antlers from its food, the deer must borrow it from within its body. In a process similar to that of osteoporosis in humans, minerals are taken from the ribs, sternum, and skull, and redeposited in the antlers. It’s an amazing process and bone density may decrease by as much as 30 percent! It also helps explain why mature bucks can grow larger antlers. Their skeletal frame becomes larger and literally bigger bucks can store more minerals in their bones. Read the rest

Texas allows the owners of high-fenced (game fenced) properties to operate under a Deer Management Permit (DMP) after meeting specific requirements. This permit allows DMP property owners to place 1 white-tailed buck and up to 20 white-tailed does in a breeding enclosure ranging between 5 to 100 acres for genetic “improvement” with the ultimate goal of increasing antler quality in bucks. After breeding, the deer must then be released onto the property and are considered “wild,” meaning they can not be recaptured.

A recent study at the King Ranch attempted to assess the effectiveness of the DMP by comparing antler scores of between pastures including DMP offspring and pastures without DMP offspring. To collect antler measurements by age class, white-tailed bucks were captured using helicopters and nets guns. Read the rest

No, we are not talking about a poorly placed shot here, but rather literally feeding to every buck’s primary need — food. Summer is a serious stress period for white-tailed deer. With that said, quality food is hard to find in many parts of the country right now, unless your area has been blessed with summer and late summer rainfall.

So, what do deer eat and how can you capitalize on hungry deer? Yes, yes, you know the answer is providing food, but you have two choices at this point. Do you wish to bait or actually provide supplemental feed the deer in your area? There is a difference and I’ve talked about baiting versus supplementing before. For those that are ate up with keeping deer in prime condition, most provide supplemental food year round through either food plots or free-choice protein.

Both of these options are fine, most deer managers even use them in combination, and they are ideal ways to promote the highest deer body conditions and support maximum antler growth, but what about some of the lease hunters or individuals that can not afford to provide supplementation throughout the year? Read the rest

Late summer is not just a stress period for wildlife, its also the time of year to survey white-tailed deer! If you regularly perform surveys on your property, you know the importance of conducting annual population estimates. For those of you that do not, surveys allow deer managers to get a snapshot of the local deer population just prior to hunting season. Without this information, it’s difficult to make harvest recommendations that fall in line with your management objectives.

The first piece of data you need going into the fall is a deer density estimate, or how many acres are available for each deer.  In central Texas, where I am located, a good rule of thumb is to 8 to 10 acres of good deer habitat per deer. Free-choice supplemental feeding can drop that to about 6 acres per deer, but one thing to keep in mind is that typically as deer density goes up the quality of individual deer goes down.

The best way to estimate deer density is to perform spotlight surveys. The information collected during spotlight surveys not only includes the number of deer spotted during the census, but also the amount of acreage that was actually observed during the survey. For example, if you have a ranch that is 1,000 acres, you can visually see 200 acres during your census, and you count 20 deer, then you have 100 deer on your property. Without good visibility data the spotlight count data will be worthless. Read the rest

There is a lot that is not known about how white-tailed deer affect their habitat under different densities with and without supplemental feed. But, that’s exactly what a research project initiated on two South Texas ranchesd hoped to determine — the effects of deer on native vegetation.

To accurately conduct the research, six 200-acre enclosures were constructed on both ranches. In addition, they were divided into 3 pairs — each with target populations of 10, 25, or 40 white-tailed deer. One of each pair was supplemented with a free-choice (all you can eat) pelleted supplemental ration and the other was left to forage from only native forbs and browse. To document changes in habitat condition, canopy cover and biomass were estimated annually. Read the rest

Now that you have decided on the best locations to monitor with your game camera, you will need to know a few tips to help make sure that you get quality deer photos. With that goal in mind, when at all possible point the camera toward the north. Not on will placing the game camera in this position greatly reduce the chance of the camera getting triggered by the sun, but it will reduce back-lighting on your subject and give you much better deer photos.

Likewise, placing the game camera in areas of heavy tree cover will also help prevent the mid-day sun from accidentally triggering the sensor. So, if you want to take better photos in a relatively open area, face the camera north. If you are trying to pattern deer using a game camera in a heavily wooded area, any direction will work.

Next, it’s important that you accurately measure the distance from the trail camera to where you expect deer to travel. If the camera is set back too far, then the sensor might not trigger and the camera will miss the shot. Of course, having a deer cross too closely is equally bad since the camera will only capture part of the deer as it passes by – or totally miss the deer all together! Read the rest

The digital game camera really has given hunters one of the best scouting tools available for white-tailed deer and other game, but most users fall short of using their camera to its potential. The game camera can be a great tool for seeing what’s out there, but like any tool, it must be used properly for the user to get the full benefit of using the “hunter that never sleeps.”

First and foremost, a digital game camera will let you see many of the bucks you have available for harvest in the area where you hunt. Most of the bucks you probably would have never seen otherwise. The most common practice employed by game camera users is to set a camera adjacent to their feeder or food plot. Although this usually gets hunters lots of pictures, all it really tells you what deer are present.

You’re probably thinking, “Well, if I know a certain buck is coming to my feeder, then I will just sit there and wait for him.” But, if you really intend for the camera to help you not only get a look at your deer, but also want it to help you bag “your” buck, then you will have to get a bit more creative, so pay attention. Read the rest

While “black” deer, more accurately referred to as melanistic deer, are very rare across North America, it seems they are being spotted more frequently in central Texas. A few weeks ago I posted some photos of a melanistic buck in Austin, Texas, but it seems that animal is not the only white-tailed deer in the area with a color abnormality. Just check out the photos of these twin white-tailed deer fawns that were taken in the Northwest Hills area of Austin. 

Dr. John Baccus, director of the wildlife ecology program at Texas State University, has been studying melanistic deer for over 13 years now. And as it turns out, Texas is a good place to study the dark colored deer. That’s because there just happens to be more black deer in eight Texas counties than in the rest of the world combined!

And as staggering as that statistic may be, most Texans still haven’t seen one! There may be more abnormally dark white-tailed deer in the central part of Texas than everywhere else combined, but don’t go there expecting to see one. Dr. Baccus had this to say about Texas’ melanistic deer:

“Even though we have more melanistic deer here than in the whole world, they’re still extremely rare. It’s the rarest of the white-tailed deer, even rarer than the big-antlered deer. I get the harvest records every year from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and generally, there are fewer than five of these melanistic deer that are harvested in any given year.”