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

No idea, but I can tell you I stopped dragging deer shortly after moving here.




Dave

The Eastern Oregon mule deer I hunt probably average around 140 field dressed for a 2.5 to 3.5 year old. Some get much bigger. I never weigh them field dressed but I get weights for the skinned carcass without head or the legs past the knees when I take them to the butcher. You can extrapolate live weights from this. I killed one buck with a live weight over 300 some years back and another weighing 250 a couple of years ago.

I moved to Michigan from ND 4 years ago. I don't know about weights but I do know the deer in west central Michigan are a lot smaller bodied than the deer in north central North Dakota.

We have the same here, well not quite a few, but some. But we've had good luck for some reason, they either get wider I guess or disappear.

There are some areas where feeders help, but generally most folks won't feed enough to do much to really help the deer.

I try to keep 10 of our 100 acres or so, in some type of food plot that can help the deer as close to year round as I can.

I personally believe that helps MUCH more than any kind of feeder, though free choice protein seems to help them in a drought.

Both food plots or natural food sources and age are much more important in the scheme of things that genetics cannot touch.

A corn filled auto feeder is nothing but an attractant of a candy store that does no good for the deer.

I'm not sure on the actual poundage but I am sure Nebraska deer are HEAVY!!

yes good point.

from the interweb



being involved in the DMAP gives access to the state biologists.

plan and simple you can't feed deer enough year around.

must have natural browse to go with it.

Gene - never have hunted TX whitetail, so no idea. The heaviest Coues whitetail I ever bagged was probably not more than 100 lbs, maybe not that heavy.

From personal experience and using scales on two well managed ranches in LaSalle County, 220 - 245 average live weight on the scales for a mature buck. One did go 265, but that is not common.

On the east side of South Texas in Refugio County, 180 - 210 live weight.

Those are 6.5+ year old deer on large, low fence ranches.

Younger management deer weigh less.

The key is to keep population numbers low enough to fit the food and water supply.

The best way to kill old deer is to quit shooting young deer.

I've never weighed a deer so I have no idea on actual weight.

I have seen bucks from a couple counties north in the edge of the hill country that were about the same size as our does are here. So size can vary wildly from place to place.

I was always under the impression that we had small deer here, but from what I'm reading here, ours are about the same as most. I'd say our average "antlered" bucks range from 100# to 130# dressed out. But a lot of the bigger ones can be as much as 150# to 180#. One of my guys killed one 2 weeks ago and weighed 160#.

This was my first buck and weighed 158#.



Here are a couple more nice ones. I'm not sure what they weighed because the state doesn't require it anymore.





I keep seeing this big guy, but I can't bring myself to kill him.

Yep.

Body mass vs. surface area.

Adaptation to the climate.

DF

Buy the way, this is in Maryland, not TX. Sorry.

Have looked over some 60 years of harvest data for both bucks and does for Camp Bullis, San Antonio, TX and all weights are dressed/gutted deer. The heaviest buck is 157 lbs and doe is 83 lbs. These deer were taken some 10 years ago when we were feeding protein year round. Just recalling from memory so may be off a lb or 2. Tom

While I've glimpsed some big bodied, nice racked bucks in my area of Northern Lower Michigan, I've never killed one. Most of the bucks taken on my property have weighed 100-120 lbs, dressed, according to my scale. I did take one big ol' doe several years ago that dwarfed the small herd that she ran with. She dressed an honest 140 lbs.

My best buck was a decent 8 point taken on state land in Midland county, down in the middle of the Lower Peninsula. It scaled 150 lbs dressed.

This is true of mammals NOT fish. A 10# bass in Texas or Florida is a nice fish, but in Illinois or Missouri, it's a Whopper. Down here, they feed voraciously pretty much 3 seasons in warmer water.

IL and MO whitetails routinely go over 200#, but that's pretty rare in Texas and is unheard of in FL.

its true of fish as well redfish and spotted weakfish run much larger on average the farther north you go, do a little research and you will see this is true. now large mouth bass are a fish whose normal habitat is in the south so LMBass introduced to more northern ranges might not do as well and follow the rule.

I believe it applies to catfish, too...most any freshwater fish. May be much different for saltwater, though.

Gene, we have a 200 lb +/- show up here on occasion, but they are not common. About South Texas, Blue (RIO7) weigh all of their deer both before and after gutting so he can clue you in on that area. They also age them and pull jaw bones to send to the state. I do know that the older Bucks that we saw were a lot bigger than the does. After looking at deer down there, I feel that I have seen very few old bucks here, so what I thought was our potential is wrong and we could have much bigger bucks. Won't happen because acreage is too small and not enough people would let them walk long enough to get old. miles

Guess it depends on where you are in Texas, each year we kill between 330 to 350 Whitetail deer, we weigh each deer live weight and dressed weight, we score every bucks antlers and collect the lower jaw to age them, on does we weigh and collect the lower jaw to age them, and make note if they are lactating or not. when he season is over we know the average weight, age, and score on the deer taken that year.

The weights will be 25% to 30% higher before the breeding season starts, the weights will go down, until the breeding season is over.

Pre-Breeding season we kill does that will weigh 120+ # and bucks that weigh 240+ # The big difference is we don't shoot young deer, we try to take deer that are 5 1/2 years old or older, and we try to take off deer that are poor quality deer no matter their age.

We look at the age of the deer before we judge antler score, our system works for us, it might not work for everyone. Rio7