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Female Bowhunter Bags 19 Point Buck

Growing big bucks is all about age, genetics, and nutrition, but when it comes to producing mature bucks year after year nothing in white-tailed deer management is as important as harvesting bucks at the proper rate. So what is the proper harvest rate for bucks? The general rule of thumb is to harvest no more than 20% of the buck herd throughout all age classes in a given year. This includes young, middle-aged, and old cull bucks as well as mature trophy bucks.

The white-tailed buck pictured above was shot on the evening of November 7, 2009 by bowhunter Joyce Ooten. She was hunting on her 23 acre Grayson County property when she arrowed the 19 point buck standing at 20 yards. Of course, the mature buck did not spend its entire life on Joyce’s 23 acres, but did I mention that her property is next door to the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (NWR)? And Hagerman NWR provides solid white-tailed deer habitat. Continue reading “Female Bowhunter Bags 19 Point Buck”

14 Point Franklin County Buck Saved

White-tailed bucks are an interesting lot. Individual bucks run together in bachelor herds during the summer, but become mortal enemies during the fall and winter. Most hunters realize the proper harvest of animals is essential for white-tailed deer population management, but we also hate to see deer die of natural causes, especially when self-inflicted. However, the life of a white-tailed buck can be tough.

In addition to surviving the seasonal stress periods of summer and winter, and sneaking by hunting season after hunting season, bucks also fight for dominance among themselves for the right to breed receptive does in the area. When big white-tailed bucks fight it is a sight to see. I have seen bucks spar for several minutes, although battles of several hours are well documented. I suspect that most encounters are intense, but short in duration (just seconds) with the stronger buck making his point rather quickly.

However, sometimes bucks will fight to the death. This happens when animals become gored by powerfully swinging points, when animals are pushed or knocked into natural obstructions, or when antlers lock and one or more bucks die from exhaustion and/or starvation. Such was the case last week when Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) responded to a landowner’s call about two bucks locked together in Franklin County, Texas. TPWD does it’s best to manage the Lone Star State’s white-tailed deer population through surveys, hunting regulations, and law enforcement, but they also get hands-on with wildlife when the situation calls.

TPWD: “On October 20 Camp County Game Warden Heath Taylor received a call from a landowner in Franklin County about two bucks that he found on his property that had gotten their antlers locked together and were under a fence on opposite sides from each other. One buck was a 9-point that had already died but the other was a huge 14-point that was still alive but to the point of exhaustion. Warden Taylor notified Franklin County Game Warden Doyle Brown and both wardens met the landowner.

When they arrived, Warden Taylor and the landowner were able to pry the bucks apart and untangle the huge buck from the fence. After laying there for a couple of minutes, the big buck stood up and walked into the brush escaping what would have been certain death. Both the wardens and the landowner stated that it was one of the biggest bucks they had seen in this area.”

Poisoned Deer in Eastland County?

Hundreds of thousands of white-tailed deer are killed in Texas each fall and winter, but typically by deer hunters in search of big bucks and those looking to fill their freezers. Automobiles even get a few, but it seems the deer and hunters in Eastland County have something else to look out for now—poison. The Texas Agriculture Extension is advising all area health care providers of a poisoning in Eastland County that occurred approximately two weeks ago.

It seems a ranch south of Carbon, Texas, tried to kill feral hogs by mixing deer corn with a pesticide called Temik, which is a neurotoxin. Apparently, the rancher spread a very large amount of mixed, poisoned corn over their 2,000 acre peanut crop to kill feral hogs, but it turns out that white-tailed deer where also feeding on the same ranch. Continue reading “Poisoned Deer in Eastland County?”

Texas Bowhunter Arrows Fighting Buck

When it comes to deer hunting, you just never know what you will see when you enter the woods. Over my hunting career I’ve seen some amazing things in nature. Some of these events I would have considered unbelievable had I not seen them with my own two eyes. But one of the benefits hunters get from sitting motionless, scentless, and undetected is that animals do what they normally do, except that we get to witness some of these normal–yet amazing—things that few people ever will.

Bowhunters often get to observe white-tailed deer up close and personal. Or at least that is the goal. However, I’ve been busted by a deer’s eyes and nose so many times that you would think it’s entirely impossible to sneak up on one. Of course, that’s what makes bowhunting so darn challenging. Yet, numerous times I’ve literally walked up to within 10 yards of deer and went undetected. As you know, it depends on the situation—and a little bit of luck. Hunting, like anything else, is all about timing. No hunter understands that more than Ben Bartlett. That’s because his right place at the right time allowed him to arrow one of two big fighting white-tailed bucks.

Ben Bartlett was at his deer hunting lease located in Angelina County before sunrise on the day of October 23. Interestingly, killing a deer was the farthest thing from Bartlett’s mind as he boarded a canoe and paddled his way down the old Neches River channel. His main objectives were to scout for acorns in a stretch of woods in the remote back country and ultimately find a good spot to take his 12-year old daughter, Alli, hunting the following morning.

Ben was making his way down an old logging road shortly before sundown when the distinctive sound of clashing antlers and crackling brush overpowered the hum of a light breeze whisping through the treetops. Past experience told him what he was hearing was a pair of heavyweights going at it. Certain the battling bucks were close, probably within 200 yards, the hunter raced down the road to shave some distance before ditching his day pack and peeling into the dark woods.

“It was pretty obvious this was not a couple of pencil horn bucks sparring. The sound of two mature bucks locking up has a real distinctive sound to it. I had no doubts this was the real deal.”

He said he pushed his way through a dense thicket that eventually opened up into an oak flat that was cluttered with clumps of palmetto and underbrush. He spotted the two whitetail bucks at about 40 yards, but dim lighting made it impossible to tell much about either deer, other than both were shooters.

“Both of the bucks had their heads down and it was just a tangle of horns. I could see their muscles bulging as they pushed and braced for leverage against one another. It was a pretty awesome sight.”

The hunter played on the fit of rage to trim the gap even farther. He inched closer each time the battle moved behind a palmetto clump, eventually moving to within 18 yards before he dropped to one knee on the soggy ground and brought his compound bow to a full draw.

“I was a little nervous about taking the shot, because their movements were so erratic. They stopped for a split second when one of the deer coiled to push back and it gave a me a clear shot, so I took it.”

The arrow found its mark, just behind the shoulder, and passed completely through. However, neither deer reacted or appeared alarmed. The hunter said the heated battle continued for about eight more seconds before the wounded buck collapsed and died. The larger buck then used its antlers to hook and gore the lifeless body of its adversary multiple times before finally fleeing the scene a minute or so later. Bartlett said he passed on multiple opportunities to shoot the second buck, which easily had 10 inches on the 140-class whitetail that lay motionless on the ground.

Bizarre as it might seem, Bartlett’s recent bowhunting encounter is not his first with stalking fighting whitetails in two decades of hunting with a stick and string. However, it is the first time he has been successful at killing one. In looking back, he thinks his success may have hinged on the fact that he threw caution to the wind and moved in quickly on the brawling bucks, before they had time to finish their business.

“I’ve tried sneaking in on fighting buck before and each time the fight was over by time I got there. In retrospect, I think I have always been too cautious and moved too slow to avoid making a bunch of noise. If it ever happens again, you can bet I’ll be trying to get there as fast I can.”

Witnessing a brawl between two mature white-tailed bucks at any distance is a prize encounter few deer hunters are fortunate enough to experience in a lifetime of hunting, but getting a ringside seat and drawing blood with a bow and arrow is virtually unheard of. Just goes to show you that anything can happen in the deer hunting woods.

The Spread of CWD in White-tailed Deer

Serious diseases such as chronic wasting disease (CWD) can be detrimental to whitetail deer management programs with mortalities impacting local deer numbers as well as regional and potentially even statewide deer populations. State agencies around the country have been monitoring CWD in deer herds for many years now, and they know that it is caused by prions, but much about the spread of the disease was unknown until now. Researchers have discovered that deer asymptomatic for the fatal brain condition known as CWD excrete the infectious prions that cause the disease in their feces.

The finding suggests a reasonable explanation for transmission of the disease among white-tailed deer, mule deer, and possibly elk and moose in the environment. While the study reveals that prions are shed in feces of symptomatic deer as well, the discovery that the infected deer shed prions in their feces many months before they show clinical symptoms is the most unsettling. White-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose inadvertently consume feces and soil in the course of their daily browsing and grazing.

The prion is an infectious form of the normal prion protein, which has been found in all mammals examined, including humans. The lethal, infectious form induces the normal protein to twist into a malconformation, initiating a disease process that ravages the brain. Prion diseases, seen in cervids, sheep, cows and humans, are also referred to as spongiform encephalopathies. In wid and captive deer, researchers now know that the inadvertant consumption of feces is how the disease is transferred from animal to animal. So what’s the next step?

With this information in hand, the researchers set out to determine whether the animals could develop chronic wasting disease through long-term consumption of contaminated feces. They did so by measuring the amount of prions contained in the feces of orally infected deer up until the time they became symptomatic and then calculated whether prolonged exposure to the concentrations of prions in these feces would be enough to cause the disease.

“Prion levels in feces samples of asymptomatic deer were very low compared to those in the brains of the same deer at the time of death,” says the lead author of the study, Erdem Tamguney, PhD, an assistant professor at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, based at UCSF. “However, the total number of prions excreted over time was sufficiently high enough to cause disease in other deer.”

The susceptibility of animals to infection, he says, may also be increased by the simultaneous ingestion of clay soil, which is thought to enhance the infectivity of prions, possibly by slowing their clearance from the gastrointestinal tract.

“Our findings suggest that prolonged fecal prion excretion by infected deer provides a plausible explanation for the high level of transmission of chronic wasting disease within deer herds, as well as prion transmission among deer and other cervid species. Our work may also explain transmission of scrapie prions among sheep and goats,” says senior author and Nobel laureate Stanley B. Prusiner, MD, UCSF professor of neurology and director of the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

The study did not examine whether CWD could be transmitted to humans via exposure to deer feces. To date, transgenic mouse studies have indicated that chronic wasting disease does not transmit to humans, but scientists remain open to the possibility that it could.

“We can only say that prions of chronic wasting disease have not transmitted to mice genetically engineered to carry the normal, healthy form of human prion protein in earlier studies,” says Prusiner. “That said, we do not know for sure that deer or elk prions cannot be transmitted to humans.”