What Is a Legal Cull Buck in Texas

In counties where the late season is special, harvesting is limited to antlerless and unbranched deer with antlers (a male with at least one antler that has no more than one tip). A point is a projection that extends at least one inch from the edge of a main beam or other length. The tip of the high beams is also a point. Management implications Personally, I don`t know if the research reported by Hewitt and his group will end the debate about cutting down year-old bumps. I reserve a final judgment until I see a study with comparable proportions conducted in the northern whitetail region (which is highly unlikely in the near future), where fluctuating environmental pressures differ from those in the southern region. Conversely, Harry Jacobson argues that little or no improvement in future wood quality will result from felling based on one-year antler strokes. Jacobson and Texas A&M geneticist Steven Lukefahr based their findings on studying 220 yearlings bred at Mississippi research facilities. They found that the deer`s ability to care for them was much more important than genetics in determining the antler points, gap, weight and beam length of the one-year-old male. A hunter has the option to use the 5 white tail tags for antlerless deer or harvest a combination of 5 deer, of which no more than 3 males are with a standard deer hunting license.

Rectilinear. What is the best way to determine if a male`s antlers are 13 inches or larger? I hunt in the Pineywoods, where the males are large, but the sprawl of the antlers is questionable whether it is 13 inches or not. Bob, the best strategy in the field is to use earplugs as a guide. Even the TPWD guide shows/suggests that a goat is 13 inches from the tip of the ear to the end of the ear when the ears are in the alarm position. In my experience, this is usually a good rule of thumb for 2-3 year olds. Older males and deer with larger bodies found in managed areas usually have greater spread from ear to ear, so using the measurement between the ears as a guide can trick a hunter into thinking the male is too small. An annual hunting license contains 3 tags that can be used on antlerless deer or deer. Since the pocket limit for white-tailed deer is set by Texas County, a hunter can shoot 3 males over 13 inches in 3 different counties with timber restriction regulations. Culling is the selective culling of suspected poor quality deer in order to improve the quality of the remaining population. In the case of whitetails, the harvesting strategy is usually to target males with poor quality antlers to remove in order to improve the overall quality of the remaining antlers for breeding and harvesting at an older age.

Those who advocate felling claim that young rams with thorny antlers are genetically inferior, will never reach the typical forked woods, even when mature, and help maintain such undesirable traits. In addition, they claim that culling will help reduce deer density, thereby improving herd nutrition, removing small antler genes from the herd, and improving future antler quality. Even if you know there are gaps, the best way is to use earrest for earplugs. I have also seen males with small ears, but if the antlers are at least as wide as the ears, then at least you have a chance to fight with the gamekeeper if the inner gap is insufficient (since TPWD says to use them as a reference). Question: “I hunt deer in Texas in areas where antler restrictions apply to white-tailed males. Can I take more than a dollar of 13 inches or more (spread) in Texas? Chris, the answer to your question is yes. Regulations for deer harvesting are organized by county. If you look at the back of a Texas deer hunting license, you will notice that there are 3 rows for deer harvesting. Each of these rows allows a hunter to determine if the male has an internal spread of 13 inches or more. A hunter can actually shoot 3 males over 13 inches in 3 different timber restriction districts in Texas. as long as they have permission to hunt on these different properties! The results of the study on the debate on the slaughter of deer in captivity produced recommendations ranging from the removal of all goats (mainly yearlings) to the complete protection of all rams, regardless of their antler characteristics. Answer: The short answer to your question is YES.

A hunter can shoot more than one white-tailed male with an internal spread of more than 13 inches in Texas. However, there are certain regulations that hunters must adhere to to remain legal. The rest of this article discusses the details of timber restrictions and regulations for deer hunting in Texas. In recent years, it seems that hunters have become fanatical about killing monsters carrying trophy-sized antlers – at all costs. For example, research by Mitchell Lockwood and his cohorts at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department showed that selective breeding by one-year-old males with higher antlers improves subsequent annual wood levels. Lockwood and his group concluded: “Our results clearly show that under consistent suboptimal environmental conditions, phenotypic change in timber quality can be achieved with intensive selective harvesting of male yearlings.” The hunter`s question above is usually about harvesting males in Texas, but I suspect he is specifically asking about harvesting males in other woodland restriction districts. Fortunately, deer hunting regulations in Texas are set based on bag restrictions. At the time of writing, 112 counties in Texas have timber restrictions that regulate the harvesting of the Virginia male. There are only 2 types of legal males in these counties, (1) males with an internal gap between the main bars of 13 inches or more, and (2) males with at least 1 unbranched antler, so most likely spines or 3-point male antler growth patterns.

Although their results have been questioned, studies conducted by Ben Koreth and James Kroll in Texas have shown that the first set of antlers from a Virginia male is a poor predictor of mature antler growth in wild deer populations. In other words, according to the authors, selective removal of one-year-old small antlers will not increase the overall size of mature goat antlers. In these counties, the pocket limit is $2 (legal), but no more than $1 can have an internal gap between the main bars of 13 inches or more. A hunter also has the opportunity to shoot 2 unbranched antlers in these counties. Probably more than many of you needed to know? Until recently, the slaughter debate revolved mainly around studies of captive deer kept at abnormally high densities and fed high-quality or restricted diets. Such controversies now seem to arise at every regional meeting between hunters and wildlife experts. Koreth and Kroll theorize that there are different patterns of antler growth in the Virginia male. One trend is a high growth rate of timber in the early years, followed by a slower rate each year thereafter.

Another model is regular (gradual) growth throughout the productive life of the animal. A third model is first a slow growth of antlers, followed by an increased growth rate at some point in the animal`s life. One-year-old males were divided into two categories of wood points, those with 3 or fewer wood points and those with 4 or more wood points. Next, the researchers compared the males recovered from the two categories of wood stitches to determine the differences in antler growth at 2.5 years, 3.5 years, 4.5 years and 5.5 years or older. The protocol allows a hunter to record up to 3 harvested males and indicate if the deer were caught in antler restriction areas, as well as if the males were taller than 13 inches.