Deer season 2020

[DILLARD000]

Don't shoot "FourLeggedDear" anymore; had my fill of sitting all day in freezing Deer\Javalina blinds in Tx in younger days.
Occasionally wet a hook for trout to fill the need. Rut now in full swing in my front acre this year;
neighbors feed 'em, I just talk to 'em by name from my deck when grilling steak\burgers.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Don't shoot "FourLeggedDear" anymore; had my fill of sitting all day in freezing Deer\Javalina blinds in Tx in younger days.
Occasionally wet a hook for trout to fill the need. Rut now in full swing in my front acre this year;
neighbors feed 'em, I just talk to 'em by name from my deck when grilling steak\burgers.
View attachment 52678

The deer hunter in me would have backstraps in my iron skillet and a nice euro mount of the big ones head hanging over my fireplace.

 

[MikeG]

Damn those things are huge compared to the runt deer where I am!

 

[Uncle Gump]

Damn those things are huge compared to the runt deer where I am!

Deer must be the only thing not bigger in Texas...

 

[sgtsandman]

You should see the deer in Florida. Those things are tiny!

 

[MikeG]

Anything over a hundred pounds is a whopper in central texas. Not much for them to eat but rocks, cactus, and cedar (juniper) and I'm not sure which of the three gives them the most nutrition....

They do get bigger outside of this area, but not by a great deal. Too warm and not enough food.

The Florida Keys deer.... I think the average housecat could take one down! Well maybe not quite that bad, but they wouldn't last long vs. the coyotes and bobcats here. And our coyotes aren't particularly big, either.

Closer to the equator you get, generally the smaller the animals are, vs. the same species at higher (colder) latitudes.

 

[sgtsandman]

The couple of doe the guys took down this year were about 160 pounds. That is pretty big though. They don’t get much bigger unless you get a buck.

 

[MikeG]

That's at least double the live weight of most of the does I shoot. Good thing there's 5 tags on my license, otherwise it would difficult to make more than a couple of sandwiches.....

Think I've killed two bucks in that weight range, west of Ft. Worth. Gets colder there, and much better soil.

 

[DILLARD000]

Deer must be the only thing not bigger in Texas...

Chemical plants & piles of bovine excrement are definitely bigger in Tx;
as a kid, dreaded days when wind was blowing out of the wrong direction.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Black tail are larger but apparently more scarce than white tail. I've been hunting 7-8 years and have yet to fill a tag (one buck with at least a spike, previous years fork or above)... Of course the terrain around here is much different than what the white tail live in for the most part at least where you can actually shoot a rifle safely/legally. Plus our season is odd, bow season starts in September I think, rifle season October into early November.

 

[Shran]

Our whitetails are probably average size... we got about 45lbs of meat from the two this year. I probably could have picked off a couple more pounds but it gets to where it's more trouble than it's worth and the sinew/silver skin is hard to remove. My big does last year and the year before were good for about 40lbs each.

The mule deer on the prairie get quite a bit bigger... the buck we have hanging on the wall weighs about as much as the little whitetail we got this year, alive and breathing

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Fun fact, white tail deer are not all the same:

White-tailed deer - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ours get pretty big, not sure how the rank officially but they basically live in a buffet of corn, soybeans, hay and pasture with only coyotes and cars for predators. 150-200lb bucks are not unheard of.

Tenet put the cows out AGAIN (he has it worked into the deal with grandpa that if he farms it he gets to run his cattle on the stalks for $free.99) so I passed on probably the last chance to hunt my grandpa's farm because I didn't want to deal with 300 head of cattle on 240 acres. Turns it into a freaking joke to try to hunt. Half of them stampede at the sight of a human, the other half follow you around bawling wanting fed.

I was really hoping that was over with in September at the end of the farming year (when they do all the contract stuff) but nope, that goes until March I guess.

 

[MikeG]

Guess the weight.....

 

[adsm08]

Guess the weight.....

6 lbs.


I came across a shed buck yesterday that had one front leg broken at the shoulder, and the other injured. I was small game hunting and didn't have anything big enough to put it down, had to call my dad to bring a bigger gun. It was badly starved and not enough meat to be worth butchering.

 

[MikeG]

Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms..... quote from one of the Clint Eastwood westerns, I think.