Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How Big Are Texas Whitetails?

The question is meaningless unless "Which part of Texas" is specified.

The biggest ones I've seen come from two areas a few hundred miles apart; the S Tx Brush Country and the Canadian River Bottoms.

Here in N Central Tx, the largest I've weighed was 137 lbs. field dressed. I killed another that was at least 20 lbs. heavier.

Given that 90% of the bucks killed in this County - prior to the 13 inch rule - were 2 1/2 Y O or younger, it's hard to determine from P&W data how large they are capable of becoming.

But I'll answer the question for THIS part of Tx by guessing that the AVERAGE field dressed weight of a mature buck will be around 110 lbs.

How about YOUR part of the country?

A mature buck here will weight around 200# early, and #180 later in the season.





The deer we kill in the Sabinal area are about the same.

my dad killed one in Mcmullen County back in 97 that dressed out at 210.

Here in AZ about 90# for a nice buck

My part of the country grows em heavy. Sometimes, hell, a lot of times, the rack doesn't match the body. A 2 1/2 year old buck in northern MN can get up to 200# and beyond field dressed (guts removed) weight. I shot a very average 8pt that dressed at 204 a few years back.

My heaviest dressed buck is 227 and that was a real long deer.

The bucks in our area tend to be long in the body, which I think leads to a lot of weight. I may be wrong, but it seems that way.

180 live weight is about the average for a 5.5 or older buck locally.

North Idaho has lots of whitetails and they can get big. I've never shot or weighed one but I've seen some real whoppers. The farther north you go, the bigger they get.

The bucks in all parts of Texas are weighing in bigger than ever before. The protein feeding programs instituted by many people on managed leases has resulted in heavier bucks statewide. The great south Texas brush country has many deer weighed in at contests each year that even surpass the 200lb mark. The panhandle area does indeed manage to yield a few 200lbers each year but nothing like the brush country. powdr

this is true of mammals and fish, they need the added weight to deal with cold weather.

my area in west central wisconsin, the avg live weight for a 4.5 yr old buck is around 250-260lb. which is 200-210 field dressed. Biggest buck i;ve killed went 243lbs field dressed, in late november.... so quite possilby could have lost 20-30lbs at that point

From Outdoor Life:

A better choice of words on my part would have been "typical" instead of "average".

For years [don't know if they still do it] TP&W would station a person at each of the larger processing facilities in each area who were tasked with aging the FIRST 100 Bucks brought in every season. This was usually accomplished on opening weekend. Seeing the large numbers of immature bucks killed is what led to the "13 in. rule" being implemented in large areas.

The downside to this rule is encouraging the preservation of genes that contribute to narrow racks. I see quite a few 5 YO bucks that will never reach the 13 inch inside spread minimum.

most i've killed were around 110 dressed

in west central MS.

I'd have to say bucks average 150-175#.

does 80-110#

about 10 years ago I killed an old 7pt. that weighed 215# on the hoof. And of course he died at the bottom of the biggest hill in the country I think.

2 years ago a fellow hunter killed a 120# doe. Largest for our camp in the last 6 years we when been on DMAP.

Took an older buck out of the Red River bottom some years back that went 190 ish hog dressed. Saw two bucks behind the house a couple of days ago both eight points and the same age and one was sporting your aforementioned narrow headgear. Thinking cull...

In my area of South Franklin county in N.E. Texas I would say the average buck of 2.5 to 3.5 years old would weigh about 110 to 140 field dressed. never killed or had a chance to kill one older. I had a pic last year of a mature 10 point that appeared about 180+ on the hoof,

There is a guy who runs a archery store at Lake Fork who killed a monster in Kansas a few years ago. It was so big even the locals came to see it hanging in the barn. I don't recall what it field dressed but it was extremely large in the pic I saw.

Amazing the size of deer when watching the shows filmed in Canada as compared to what we have around here.

I wish we could auto feeder our deer like you all do in Texas. We'd have monsters.

I saw a 200" plus buck that was killed yesterday in Texas that weighs 285 from the photo with him hanging from some scales. Big racked/bodied low fense buck taken with a crossbow.

Field dressed weights in a few of the areas I've lived.

Tennessee: 115

FL: 125

AK: 125