PUBLIC DEER YOU NEVER HEARD ABOUT – November/December 2020

ONE OF THE COMMON misconceptions many deer hunters have when it comes to hunting on public hunting lands—national forest properties in particular—is that the game is sparse and good quality bucks are few and far between.

No doubt, the hunting can be way tougher on public land than private, particularly in areas that are heavily pressured. But there are some king-size rewards to be reaped for those who put forth the effort, hunt smart and are fortunate enough to find a little luck in their corner.

I’ve interviewed dozens of successful East Texas deer hunters over the years. One of my favorite public lands stories was told by private lands hunter Clint Croft. In 1999, Croft killed a monster 17-pointer in Houston County that netted 202 3/8 Boone and Crockett inches. It’s among the highest scoring bucks ever taken in that county.

Actually, Croft didn’t kill his buck on public land, but it probably grew up there. Croft shot the buck at his uncle’s farm, which is surrounded on three sides by the Davy Crockett National Forest.

Croft said the small farm had been hunted hard by other family members for 18 previous seasons. No one had ever reported seeing such a freak deer.

When Clayton Wolf heard about Croft’s buck shortly after opening weekend, he had a pretty good idea it was a product of the big woods. Wolf rode shotgun over the Pineywoods region for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department at the time as the District 6 wildlife biologist.

“It never comes as a surprise to me when I hear about big deer coming from those types of places,” recalled Wolf. “I suspect the buck was savvy enough to escape the heavy hunting pressure for several years. He was probably holed up in a core area of the national forest and got lured out onto the small private tract by a doe in heat.”

National forest lands always seem to produce one or two outstanding bucks each hunting season. The same is true of TPWD wildlife management areas and national wildlife refuges. There, hunting pressure is typically more regulated by hunt drawings that keep the number of hunters allowed at one time on the properties to a minimum.

Here’s a sampling of some of the better public lands bucks taken over the last decade. The Davy Crockett National Forest has had a particularly hot hand since 2013, producing four top shelf non-typical bucks with gross Boone and Crockett scores beyond 160.

One of the most remarkable Crockett bucks reported to the Texas Big Game Awards program belongs to Dyllon Pate of Apple Springs.

Pate shot his Trinity County whopper on November 13 of the 2015 season. Aged at 6 1/2, the tall-tined 11-pointer grosses 171 2/8 as a non-typical and 156 1/8 net. It’s among the Top 10 Trinity County bucks ever entered in the TBGA. It’s also one of best non-typicals from the county since 2012.

Trent Kendrick is a huge fan of the state’s public hunting lands program, and he loves doing business on Davy Crockett real estate. He hunts the Alabama Creek WMA southwest of Lufkin every fall with his dad, Gerald.

In November 2013, Kendrick shot a monster 13-pointer off the 14,500-acre WMA that wound up being the top public lands buck reported statewide. It was the No. 4 non-typical from the Pineywoods that season. The Trinity County buck grossed 172 4/8 and netted 167 1/8 B&C.

The 160,000-acre Davy Crockett was back in the news again in 2017 and 2018, courtesy of Cody Brister and Shawn Lewis.

In November 2017, Brister bagged a 5 1/2-year-old 11 pointer in Trinity County that grosses 165 3/8 and nets 159 B&C. It was the top scoring public lands buck from eastern Texas that season and ranked 9th among the region’s non-typicals that year.

Even more impressive was Lewis’s buck taken the following November. Sporting nine points, the 5 1/2-year-old Houston County whitetail gross scores 168 7/8 and nets 161 5/8. It was the top scoring public lands buck turned over to TBGA from eastern Texas that season and the No. 4 non-typical reported from Region 6.

As earlier mentioned, state-run WMAs crank out some dandy whitetails each year. Perhaps the most impressive was taken during a 2015 archery draw hunt on the Chaparral WMA in South Texas by crossbow hunter Bill William of Ganado.

The 5 1/2-year-old non-typical grosses 172 3/8 and nets 165 4/8. It is the second largest gross scoring buck from the WMA in last 30 years. Remarkably, the buck also scores high as a typical, 167 6/8 gross and 155 4/8 net.

The high fence WMA in LaSalle and Dimmit counties was equally good to 14-year-old Katelyn Chappell last season. Chappell was participating in a Youth Only draw hunt when she brought down an outstanding 12-pointer that grosses 166 2/8 and nets 165 3/8 as a typical. It was the No. 1 typical reported from public lands statewide last year and the No. 5 high fence typical turned in to TBGA from Region 8.

Draw hunters on two East Texas WMAs scored big during the last two seasons. In 2019, Leonard Mechler shot at a 12-pointer at the Gus Engeling WMA in Anderson County. Mechler’s buck gross scores 161 3/8 and nets 156 1/8. The buck, was reportedly caught on game camera the week before Mechler took it, is the top scoring non-typical reported from the WMA since 1997.

In 2018, the David Fosatti of Alvin shot a magnificent 12-pointer during a draw hunt on the Alazan Bayou WMA in Nacogdoches County. The deer grosses 161 4/8 as a typical and 166 7/8 as a non-typical. It’s the highest scoring buck ever reported from the 2,100-acre WMA.

Fosatti, who has made several hunts on public land in the past, wasn’t the only one surprised by the whopper whitetail. The buck also left the TPWD staff that oversees the WMA scratching their heads.

“We ran five different game cameras out there all summer long and we never got the first picture of that deer,” said Bill Adams, leader of the department’s Pineywoods Ecosystem Project. “We’ve seen some really nice bucks out there, including a 170-plus. But this deer was a complete surprise. There’s no telling where he came from.”

 

 

—story by MATT WILLIAMS

 

 

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