Mule deer restrictions

[Guerrero88]

We call him school bus

[chuckw]

i own land in three of the counties mentioned. i took the survey and and i agree with the antler restriction 100%. i am an avid hunter and it pains me to see what people are willing to kill on the last day of the season just to kill something. plenty of hogs and coyotes around if you have an itchy trigger finger! i have looked over at least 20 mule deer bucks this year and none of them would meet the requirements. i do understand people wanting to get something for their money, but arent you really "leasing" the experience anyway? if you wanted to buy a big deer, there are plenty of places around that will sell you one. i actually wish they would manage the WT up here more stringently as well.

[txarcher]

A hunt during the rut would bring higher success for sure. Might mean even more bucks got killed though if they kept it open ended on how many deer could be killed on a place. If they'd issue a fixed number of permits for each ranch, they could extend the season through the rut to allow better opportunity on the mature bucks without worrying about too many bucks getting killed.

Yes sir. Our TPWD Biologist won't even talk to a landowner about MLD if they have less than 10,000 acres though. Another issue: while calling coyotes I have counted 188 mule deer on 160 acre wheat field that was adjacent to a 20,000 acre ranch. I don't have a clue how you plan for that. I think that a combo of AR and extended season would give some hunters enough hope that they might actually have a chance at a 200" deer that they would hunt for the trophy to the last day of season. Some will be successful and some won't. I'm probably off my rocker, but I know that the quality of deer has dwindled in this whole area because of the plan that's currently in place.

[chuckw]

[ATTACH]886892[/ATTACH]

Here's one that needs to go on our place

this is another problem all together. how many immature 8pts were killed instead of this deer to let him get to this point. few people are willing to "take one for the team" when it comes to hunting!

[txarcher]

I'd also like to see them allow unlimited year round hunting of whitetail in mule deer country, but that's just me. There's plenty of places to hunt whitetail. Mule deer need all the habitat they can get.

Ha! I've heard of places where that is allowed. Probably by some sort of special permit.

[SabreKiller]

They do have MLD for mule deer, but most ranchers aren't on it.

Part of the out of whack buck-to-doe numbers is that you can only shoot bucks and no does, unless you're on MLD. Packing in too many hunters where everybody feels like they need to kill something to get their money's worth, and all they can kill are bucks....and then factor in the huge die off from the drought a few years ago.... All that adds up to a lot of young bucks being killed.

^^^^^This is spot on. It should be implemented in the Trans Pecos area as well. We hunted 35K acres north of Van Horn and most of the guys that hunted with us were from Arkansas. They drove a long way, spent a lot of money on tags, fuel, etc. and on more than one occasion I heard some of them say "I'm going home with something!" And then they complained about not seeing any big bucks. Myself and a couple others kept telling them it was because they shoot all the young bucks, but most of them never listened.

The TPWD biologist for the area is a good friend and she mounted one of them guys from Arkansas for killing a young deer. It was awesome to hear.

Fro several years you could kill mule deer does, but that went away (don't remember the year). For several years we asked the biologist for doe permits, so those knuckleheads that just HAD to kill something, but she wouldn't give them to us. It didn't matter to me. I always worked/hunted harder for a deer than all those guys and I killed some pretty good ones over the 25+ years I hunted there.

[Guerrero88]

this is another problem all together. how many immature 8pts were killed instead of this deer to let him get to this point. few people are willing to "take one for the team" when it comes to hunting!

I would have gladly taken this guy. Would have had summer sausage for two years.

Your right though. So many young deer are taken every year that have potential to be a trophy animal.

[Abctx]

FWIW, I own a section and a half in Hall. Brother took one muley this year (that wouldn't have met AR). Only mule deer he's ever shot. That's the ONLY mule deer buck taken on the place in the 4 plus years I've owned it. I saw ONE mule deer buck (2 years ago, after end of rifle season) that would have met AR in the 4 years I've had the place. Nothing on camera, and nothing seen by my family that would meet AR.

I had hoped that, getting further out from the drought, I'd start seeing some large 3.5+ year old deer. It hasn't happened. Plenty of does. No big bucks. I'm for it if it can give these bucks some time to grow.

[basschump]

NM issues a certain number of bull elk, cow elk and archery elk tags to private land owners that have elk on their property or have migrating elk, at least that is what they use to do when I ws guiding up there. All of this is done by survey and they can give the tags away, burn them or sell them as they usually do. I believe antelope is done this way also.

Might work for mule deer in the Panhandle to alleviate hunting pressure since all you can do is shoot bucks and can hunt as many people as you want on any size acreage.

I’ve bought landowner tags the last few years in NM. I feel it’s more of a landowner subsidy than based on science. Landowners with 80 acres can apply for unit wide tags- so the subject property is likely not going to be hunted.

The Ranch Only approach, in which the tag is limited to the ranch is definitely in line with what you are suggesting. Antelope is similar in which tags are assigned on A ranch basis.


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[Etxbuckman]

The TPWD biologist for the area is a good friend and she mounted one of them guys from Arkansas for killing a young deer. It was awesome to hear.

Wow. She really went all out on that one.

[bossbowman]

Huh?! What kinda restriction does Matador have now, last time I was there to be a legal muley buck had to have at least 4 points on one side, don't remember if they had any restrictions on whitetails. The way the biologist Chip talked that 4 point on one side rule was going to adopted across all the panhandle counties that had mule deer, guess he was wrong.

[eradicator]

I doubt that...and would disagree with it if they did.

Great way to encourage poaching!

[bossbowman]

I would not be surprised to see them eventually intervening with regards to the total number of deer (whitetail, specifically) that can be taken from a given acreage (i.e. smaller properties). Maybe we'll all be MLDP someday.

I am pretty sure that is the way TPWD is headed as the human population increases, if true the small acreage guys are gonna get the short end of the stick. They want to eventually manage the deer by GMU (game management unit) like other states where the boundaries are more drawn by eco-region rather than by county like we currently have. The way disscussions were going several years ago I thought this would have been down the pike for 2016 or 2020 as they seem to look at major deer regulation changes every 4 years but it looks to be on the back burner for now.

[myway]

This would be a great thing. The numbers are rebounding and I saw and have photos of more up and comers and twin fawns this year then the last 5 years so they are making a rebound. The problem is that the #s are still extremely low especially compared to what was there before the drought.
As Shane mentioned people jamming WT # of hunters per acres for MD will not help but I believe these are land owners thinking it has rebounded to what it once was and $. They will need to figure something out on the does eventually but I personally do not believe we are there yet.

[bossbowman]

Instead of AR, I think it would be better if the state issued permits to each landowner, and that's all the deer that could be killed on that place. Pretty much the same as MLD, but just do it for everybody. If a place that is 1,000 acres only gets 1 or maybe 2 buck permits, then it'd be pretty hard to find 6 guys from Dallas to join the lease.

This honestly might be a better idea for mule deer. I am a fan of the AR and have seen positive results from them in the counties I hunt but , but like Philip-TX said I really hope they are not basing this reg change off the success of the antler restricions in the eastern third of the state that would be a mistake, just because it works for whitetail doesn't mean it will for muleys