Whitetail deer season wraps up this weekend (January 19) for North Texas hunters. Thanks to the muzzleloader and special youth season, hunting continues throughout the weekend of January 18-19 and then deer hunters have to wait until next fall to again take to the whitetail woods. But did you know that on many Texas ranches that are permitted by Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD), deer can be harvested through February by special permit?
I remember when this Managed Lands permit system was just getting started years ago. In the beginning, only a few ranches/farms were enrolled but today more than 10,000 ranches encompassing over 26 million acres across the state are part of the program. It’s not difficult to find a late season ranch or farm to hunt through the end of February.
This has been a ‘different’ year of deer hunting for me. For decades I’ve hunted with everything from bow to muzzleloader and usually find myself in a tree stand with my bow in early October. Until recently the temperature has been better suited for fishing than spending time in the deer woods. I was swatting mosquitoes well into November this fall. When cooler weather finally arrived in December, I felt as though deer season was just beginning.
I kicked my whitetail hunts off up in Oklahoma hunting
land owned by the Choctaw Nation In November and with the onset of cold weather, have been spending a good bit of time hunting with friends here in Texas, several of which are in the Managed Lands permit system.
With about 6 weeks of deer hunting remaining during a period of the coolest weather of the year, I feel as though it’s Opening Day again! This past week, I used my CVA 50 caliber Optima muzzleloader to harvest what many would consider a “management buck” while hunting with some great friends in Kaufman County. The buck was definitely what wildlife managers want spreading his genes throughout the herd. One side of the buck’s rack was basically a long spike with a couple of short points and the other a long main beam with a couple of ‘kicker’ points.
During the early days of my deer hunting, back in the sixties and early seventies, this buck would have been considered a wall hanger up in Red River County where I was raised and would have given me bragging rights for months to come but thanks to today’s good management practices, there are way more ‘wall hanger’ bucks in the woods than ever.
Removing bucks with inferior antlers is one good way to improve the overall trophy potential of a deer herd, so the biologists tell us. This stands to reason; a cattle breeder definitely chooses the better bulls as sires for his herd. Why would this not hold true for deer. My biologist friends tell me that the buck is only half the equation when it comes to producing trophy antlers. The doe is equally important, which makes perfect sense.
The problem is, how does one selectively harvest doe that have the potential of producing trophy class buck fawns? A big doe is a big doe; there are no antlers to observe to help determine trophy potential. With deer in the wild, this will always be a challenge.
With plenty of meat from a couple of deer in the freezer in the form of tenderized steaks, breakfast sausage and smoked links, my goal of four deer is halfway accomplished. I plan to harvest a couple more deer on the managed ranches I will be hunting.
Last February I joined by friends Larry Weishuhn and Jeff Rice out in Sterling County in far west Texas for a late season hunt that I nicknamed our “Second Opener”. We are planning a repeat of this hunt in a couple weeks. Larry tells me there are several doe that need to be harvested and possibly a buck or two.
Any legal sporting arm can be used on these managed land ranches and I’m planning on using my muzzleloader and a CVA Cascade center fire in 6.5 PRC. In this open country, a very long shot at a really good buck is always possible and with my Cascade topped with a Stealth Vision scope, I have a rig that is quite capable of a clean harvest at a very long distance. I feel completely comfortable shooting out to about 500 yards from a good solid rest. The scope is equipped with external turrents that are pre set for ranges up to 600 yards. With the Stealth range finding binoculars that tell me the exact yardage, I can obtain the distance, dial in the scope and make the shot.
We plan to film our hunts out there for an upcoming segment of our digital TV show, ”A Sportsman's Life”. Hopefully I will soon be able to talk you along on this hunt with me via the video as well as an update in this column.
We already have our camp meals planned.
Larry will be grilling his famous boned chicken thigh which has become one of my favorite camp meals. He grills the chicken over a hot bed of mesquite coals,
turning them almost constantly until they are done. He favors Cavender’s seasoning but a basic rub of
salt, garlic and black pepper is also very good.
Our buddy Jeff Rice prepares an Asian sweet and sour dish from lightly smoked, fried small pieces of venison or wild pork back strap that makes a tasty and quick
camp meal. I will likely use my cast iron skillet to fry some venison backstrap and prepare a big skillet of
smothered back strap with rice and gravy. It’s not hard to be a prize winning camp cook around our camp, the goal is to keep the dishes simple but tasty as well as quick and easy to prepare. Oh yes, and there need to be plenty of it! Three hungry hunters can consume mass quantities of hot tasty food after a day out in the winter woods!
I’d like to invite you to my sixth annual Outdoor Revendzous in Greenville, Texas at the Top Rail Cowboy
Church on Saturday March 1. To reserve a venders spot (free) contact the church or call Pastor Nassar at
903-217-3778 or email me at lukeclayton1950@gmail.com. Come visit with me and several of my great friends including Larry Weishuhn around the campfire. There will be live music and plenty of tasty food!
