PANHANDLE/ROLLING PLAINS
Biologist Danny Swepston works in the Texas region that, as far as deer management, differs the most from the rest of the Lone Star State, especially when it comes to the impact of winter weather. He's the only one, for example, who made a point of talking about snowfall amounts in reporting on the 2007-08 season.

Although all the numbers weren't in as this was written, Swepston felt prepared to characterize last season in his area as good. "Overall, our whitetails were in good-to-excellent shape when the season opened," he said. "We got a lot of rain in that critical period when antler development starts in the spring.

"That early moisture helps develop browse, too. As a result, our body weights were very good. Our deer use winter wheat, too, and they really used it last year. We didn't have really heavy snows, either, and that was helpful."

He also pointed out that the Panhandle is one of those areas in Texas that's seen steady growth in deer numbers for 30 years. CRP acreage has been a major positive factor in that growth, he stated, adding that the time has come for hunters and landowners in the region to begin really paying attention to numbers. "We are encouraging folks to try to keep their deer numbers down," he said, "because we all know how they can increase in a hurry."

CROSS TIMBERS
Biologist Kevin Mote is one who didn't talk about lower harvest numbers. "I think our harvest was a little above average last season," he said, "just based on the number of deer coming into the locker plants. We also had a little bit more pleasant hunting conditions, especially at the start of the season. There wasn't a lot of 90-degree weather, which helped."

Deer in his region exhibited "tremendous body size and antler development," Mote reported, and many had scored exceptionally well. "Our rain started in the late spring last year, and we got it at just the right time," he added.

Mote had a couple of reasons for his very positive outlook for the 2008-09 season and beyond -- and believe it or not, drought's directly responsible for one of them. "Any time you go through a drought, which we have in recent years, the population gets pared down," he explained. "As a result, you actually have some room to breed."

In other words, lower populations help the available habitat support the deer that remain, and production tends to be good.

Another element is the focus on intense management he's seeing. While not something that's unique to his part of the Lone Star State, it's still worth mentioning here -- again -- because of its impact.

Landowners and managers are making strong efforts to improve habitat and nutrition on their lands, and they're harvesting does with an eye toward balancing the sex ratio of the deer herds they manage.

"We have more Texans that ever who are eager to balance the age structure in bucks," said White-Tailed Deer Project leader Mitch Lockwood. "We also have more landowners and land managers focusing on intensive habitat management. Our overall numbers might be down over the long-term average, but 2007-08 was a banner year for antler quality.

"The bottom line is that the whole package is coming together for us in many places around the state," Lockwood said, "and the whole package works."