Harper Tx area “Maner rd””

[vanmedic]

Has anyone hunted between Harper & Doss ? I have a new lease on Maner rd . Looks like we have good numbers of whitetail &Turkey , right now very few hogs thank god, sure that will change. Not seeing any axis , but seem to be some in the area. Starting feeding Alfalfa to try and draw some in. Anyone have experience and or advise in the specific area concerning Axis? Thank you, Adam

[Texas452]

Has anyone hunted between Harper & Doss ? I have a new lease on Maner rd . Looks like we have good numbers of whitetail &Turkey , right now very few hogs thank god, sure that will change. Not seeing any axis , but seem to be some in the area. Starting feeding Alfalfa to try and draw some in. Anyone have experience and or advise in the specific area concerning Axis? Thank you, Adam

That brings back lots of memories.
My grandpa,dad and uncles hunted there from sometime in the 50’s to around 1970. There were so many deer back then, mostly does.
They converted an old tin sheep shed into a camp house, wood heater and all. I loved it out there but I was too young to hunt I just tagged along and set with whoever would take me out.
Fun Times!

[Hogmauler]

Has anyone hunted between Harper & Doss ? I have a new lease on Maner rd . Looks like we have good numbers of whitetail &Turkey , right now very few hogs thank god, sure that will change. Not seeing any axis , but seem to be some in the area. Starting feeding Alfalfa to try and draw some in. Anyone have experience and or advise in the specific area concerning Axis? Thank you, Adam

Adam, we just sold our property in Mountain Home right off of 1-10 and 27. We had a small heard of axis that were predominantly nocturnal. The whitetail and the axis loved the alfalfa. Keep in mind that they seem to only eat the leaves and the stems can make a mess. I bought alfalfa with Timothy grass cubes from tractor supply, built a feeder and fed outta there. The cubes were eaten but not at the rate of the hay. I have construction pictures of my feeder. If you’d like em shoot me your email and I’ll send em to you.
Almost forgot, my buddy on here, Tony Pic is a plethora of hill country information!

[AndyMane]

They are there for sure, I see them all the time passing through on my way to Sonora.

[Hogmauler]

And I thought Mountain Home was a haul.

[TxHamJello]

We just sold our place in Harper. The winter freeze this year put a serious hurt on the Axis numbers for sure. The whitetail still have huge numbers in the area. We never had any pigs on our place in the years we were down there. But, we didn't have a source of water for them either.

[Hogmauler]

Ditto this. We had no pigs but no water or electricity on our place. We were going to develope it and when our taxes arrived we said no. $3700.00 for 10 undeveloped acres and was told by K Cad that “out taxes would continue to rise yearly”.

[TX_Hoghunter]

We hunted just west of Harper from about 12 years. We drove through Doss on the way. We always saw a ton of deer in that area including some respectable bucks. Never saw a ton of exotics but did see a few here and there. Our experience with Axis was fairly simple...If you had cows or goats the axis were sporadic at best. It you did not have livestock on the place the axis were regulars.

-john

[Runnin4D]

We are 2 miles due east of Maner rd/Schoolhouse Hollow, as the crow flies.
We just started seeing axis a few years ago, mostly on camera and mostly does. One small buck was shot a couple years ago. They are VERY finicky. I actually haven't even caught a glimpse of one in person while hunting. Our landowner runs goats so like others said, that probably doesn't help.

Obviously plenty of whitetail. Hogs have gotten worse over the last couple years.

[AtTheWall]

Old STORMY MANER and the Maner family ranch road. Yes - I know this area intimately - driven that road since the 1960s - with Grandpa, Dad and my own kids thru the decades.

Family ranching there from the 1800s to now. One ranch left - cousin and his wife are there, no kids, homes and pre-planned residential communities are now starting to evolve.

Dad went and graduated from High School in Harper

Never was much for exotics there, the terrain is goat and sheep country - a few cows for the family freezer, windmill and now modern electric and computerized water pumps, is the typical water scenario there.

If you don't have year round - cool and clean water, Axis may or may not, skirt thru?

Water - well known watering spots, they find it at night for sure. Daylight - it depends on the traffic, pressure, people and livestock in proximity to this water supply.

The East side of Harper, has the least amount of free range exotics. Manor road is on the east side - it rambles due north, and at the top end of the road closer to Doss - the clay and dirt mixes red with caliche rocks there.

It is on this upper end of Manor road, near the old Stormy Manor high fence ranch, where Stormy's grandpa put a B&C buck down on the ranch at the turn of the century near 1900. That red clay - like it is in South Texas - seems to hold some bigger bone?

Lotta local history along that stretch of road - much of it is free range ranching with no fencing on the top end near Doss. Lotta natural springs, and areas where water leaches out of rock year round. This too, is along that North end, the end where the Manor clan settled during the 1800s

Hogs and coyotes - not gonna see much of either. The local ranchers have pursued eradicating them for years through there, competition for food and killing of lambs kid goats by the coyotes.....ranchers have paid predator hunters who regularly keep them thinned out.

Recently - domestic turned wild dogs, have become a nightmare. Helicopter patrols shooting a pile of them, has been done, to keep that problem in check.

The community is very connected from a ranching perspective. High fencing there, is a source of sore discussion between the older generations - the founding families.

There was a period where no one had whitetail. They were gone and had to be restocked by genetics from East and South Texas during the 30s and 40s.

My Uncle started the Harper area whitetail deer counts, back in the 1960s, when doe only hunting, had deer numbers so upside down. Go out and count 100 whitetail at one evening sit - in that pile - the bucks were spikes, yearlings and or basket 8s. 20 does or more per buck - the ratio was way off.

So they got the local ranchers together, and picked ranches and specific spots on the ranch, where they parked with q-beams and counted whitetail, regularly after sundown, for years and years - providing this to the State so they would fix the miss management of doe only hunting there.

Lotta stubborn German and Polish - Czech types thru this region - and some of the old landowners alive today, still have a lock on a lot of those old ways.

[Hogmauler]

ATW, I love your passion for history and story telling. A lost art for sure.

[150class]

I know the Maner's but have little idea on the hunting lol

Believe they have said they are covered in whitetail but not much on the exotic side.

[AtTheWall]

Those big arse Axis bucks, after the sun goes down, sit on water that is consistent - they will show. But it's a night hunt to seal that deal.

All of the largest Axis bucks I've been able to see, all of them, spotted in headlights or a qbeam near water - enroute to the water and or leaving the water going elsewhere.

Water was the common component and darkness

Sonora - Junction - Comfort - Kerrville - Boerne ........ just to name a few locations where I've seen some stud exotic axis bucks - all after night

A female friend from Sonora, she has about 3k acres of family ranch of her own, hit and totaled a truck - big Axis buck running across the road from her father's water tank

My largest Axis spotted to date, sunset between Fredericksburg and Kerrville (closer to Kerrville side) - running across the highway - to the Pedernales river with water in it - nearly hit him too

Springs with water - year round - they are along that zone. They will travel the bottoms along rivers and springs - and they will follow old dry creek beds as well. You will rarely ever see an Axis, cross over the top of any hilltop - sky lighting themselves in the process. They keep low and the older and wiser, the more down in the ravine they seem to stay.

Which mixes them with hogs - hogs need water, lots of water.

Axis need a lot of water to digest their food. Texas Monthly ran a stupid article about the axis deer die off during the freeze - they died with bellies full of undigested food. And they mentioned in the article, "maybe they died of a bacterial infection?"

Idiot doesn't realize they died because water was ice, and all that food, had zero WATER to digest anything and they died of dehydration and freezing to death in the process of trying to find water. All the water was ice, and for literally 2 weeks, if someone wasn't busting ice off the windmill water tanks so their livestock could drink, the axis were not drinking either.

One old rancher near Luckenback, staring at a big dead Axis buck next to a frozen water pipe - "Guess he was thirsty?"

High fences, with water supplies inside the fence - if you couldn't get there to break ice, the roads too dangerous to drive etc?, the critters needing that water stress and end up dead - in freezing temps that go several weeks on end with ice.

A lotta critters died because the land owners didn't keep drinkable water available for the animals that need water daily. Axis and blackbuck need water DAILY

[Bobcat13]

I hunt a few miles east of Doss and haven't seen any Axis there, but wouldn't be surprised to see them. Have taken a trophy Blackbuck there. More whitetail than we could ask for.

[DEREKG22]

not sure how far south of doss your place is but my fathers lease is about 4-6 miles northeast of where u probably are....no axis yet...lots of deer and pigs...some gobblers