Deer

Texas’ Wildlife Management Areas are as distinct and varied as the different regions of the state where they are located. This network of public land is managed by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, which uses the hundreds of thousands of combined acres for a number of purposes. Mostly, the...

Hitting a baseball is like sighting in a firearm for Texas deer hunters preparing to head afield in search of whitetails. When you first chew on it, that statement may sound puzzling. But upon closer inspection, both pursuits can be broken down into three simple steps: Load, aim and shoot. When...

As a season for one deer species wrapped up last weekend in the Texas Panhandle and Rolling Plains, another continues, though success certainly hasn’t come easy for many hunters. The mule deer season in area counties that ran through three full weekends ended Sunday, while the whitetail season across most...

The dusty breeze tickled the tops of spindly mesquites and thick bunch grass as I descended the steps of the tower stand. At the bottom, the icy chill of the late November morning hit me square in the face as binoculars were raised for what seemed like the 100th time. The massive nontypical buck was laying down. Better yet, he was facing away. Best of all, he...

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is taking public comment on reauthorizing the practice of using tracking dogs to trail wounded deer, which has been prohibited in a dozen eastern counties for more than 20 years. A series of public meetings is slated to provide details of the proposal and...

It’s about to be big buck time across Texas, something that should have you spending as many hours in the field as possible, no matter where you call home. The Lone Star State has long had the largest population of white-tailed deer in the country, but the only thing that...

Deer hunting in Texas is more than just a barrage of camouflage. For many folks -- hundreds of thousands of us here in the Lone Star State alone -- deer hunting is life, and from Amarillo to Brownsville north to south and Texarkana to El Paso east to west, it’s...

The Texas deer hunting forecast is always exceptional, even in years such as this when dry, hot conditions take over in the late spring and through the summer, leading to concerns about how the season will shape up as range conditions seemingly deteriorate by the day, if not the...

This deer season may not be one for the overall record books, but in Texas that type of prognostication isn’t dire. In fact, even in what biologists and land managers would term an “average” or even “below average” season, we’ve still got some great hunting opportunities. The Lone Star State...

The waiting game that was spring and summer is almost over for Texas deer hunters. Beginning next month — specifically the first Saturday in October — those with archery equipment and crossbows will get first crack at another waiting game, the one filled with feverish expectation that a burly, mature...