Keeping the Hunt Going

KNOW YOU’VE STILL got a hunt or two left on property under the TPWD’s Managed Land Deer Permit program,” stated my brother. He continued, “Some of the bucks I saw early before the season on my property just started showing up again. Don’t have a MLDP, but I have the Muzzleloader Season to look forward to.”

“Lots of good deer hunting still to be had in January and even into February with managed land permits.” I responded. Indeed, there is some great whitetail hunting still to be had before the Texas whitetail deer seasons are over. 

Late winter is a great time to take a big mature buck that, during the earlier part of the hunting season, made himself scarce. There are basically two reasons older, mature bucks move—hunger and sex.

By the time we get into January most of the whitetail hunting is over. But in Texas, we have greatly varied habitat and terrain. This results in widely different times when the breeding seasons across our state, occur. I have seen bucks seriously chasing does as early as the first week of September along the central part of the Gulf Coast—and as late as mid-January in the Brush Country. The reason the rut occurs when it does, where it does, is so that about 230 days later, fawns are born at the most nutritionally opportune times in that immediate area.

With changes in land practices, and year-round supplemental feeding, deer in those areas where the nutritional levels are high do not change with the season. There is no longer a real reason for fawns to be born during a specific window.

It’s interesting that female whitetail fawns, if they are on a really good nutritional level, (meaning about eighteen percent protein, excellent energy and optimum vitamins and minerals) can and often do breed at six to eight months of age. It is not uncommon for upwards of sixty to eighty percent of doe fawns born in late spring and early summer, to begin breeding in January or even early February.

Young doe fawns that experience their first estrus are highly sought after by bucks. Thus, a good hunting strategy in January amounts to hunting prime feeding areas where deer concentrate and congregate. Bucks come to these feeding areas to forage, but also check on the estrus status of young does.

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to hunt a well-managed property in central Texas near Llano. For the most part the peak of the whitetail rut in the area had taken place in mid-November.

My schedule was such I could not get to the ranch until after the annual DSC Convention (www.biggame.org) in early January. Thankfully, the owner had invited me to hunt in mid-January.

A cold north wind was blowing when I arrived at the ranch. I knew where there was a food plot that had been planted in late fall, and had only recently started producing forage. I felt assured young and old does, as well as some bucks, would be there. First afternoon, hidden behind a “comfortable” boulder, I watched a mature typical 12-point stride into the field. He made a run at a couple of young of the year does. It was a fatal mistake on his behalf. Food and sex!

 

Email Larry Weishuhn at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

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