Last Chance Deer

 For deer hunters in South Texas, Jan. 19 to Feb. 1 is the last window of opportunity to put venison in the freezer, and that venison cannot be wearing antlers.

The "late antlerless and spike" deer season that traditionally closes by February was not dreamed up as a management practice to cure the management glitches of the state deer herd, Texas Parks and Wildlife Biologist Eric Garza said, rather, a chance to harvest a deer without the high-pressure, high-stakes chase during regular white-tailed deer season, when the vast majority of hunters pursue heavy antlered trophies.

Garza said his first buck was a year-and-a-half old spike he harvested in Duval County more than 15 years ago, in an area that was heavily over-hunted and generally "shot out." The extra two weeks TPWD allows for hunting does and buck deer that do not sport branched antlers is meant more to accommodate that type of hunt, Garza said, and is well suited for first-time or beginning hunters.

Garza said the misperception that the late antlerless and spike buck-only season was set aside for herd management, and that the hunting population are doing white-tailed deer genetics a favor by "culling" spikes is fairly common. Spike deer, which are no more than bucks sporting two non-branching horns, are commonly mistaken as a genetic anomaly, he said. However, the overwhelming majority of spike deer are simply young, undernourished bucks, and those that grow spike horns even into the third or fourth year of their lives have caused widespread belief among hunters that there is such a thing as a "terminal spike" - doomed to remain a spike its whole life. This rather prevalent idea is simply incorrect, Garza said.

"There is no such thing as a terminal spike," Garza said. "Spike deer occur because of nutritional deficiencies. In a place where you see a lot of spikes, it's a good sign the deer are overpopulated in that area, even though a lot of people don't like to hear that."

Garza said that because of a serious deficit in rainfall for the 2007-2008 antler-growing period, the western Rio Grande Valley in particular - as well as points northward - saw a lot of spike bucks. The biologist attributed the proliferation in spike bucks to poor habitat.

Another prolific belief about the late antlerless season is that it is a time when does should be actively harvested under the general assumption that this is also somehow beneficial to an area's white-tailed deer herd.

"Whether or not you're going to shoot does depends on extremely specific property goals and is influenced by things like habitat goals, whether the property is high-fenced or not, the buck-doe ratio, fawn crop, target harvest and so on.

"If hunters are already holding back on shooting younger bucks and letting them grow on a property, they're already managing their herd," Garza added. "But there's a huge difference between management and just taking a first-time hunter out and getting the first thing you see. A lot of times, the first thing that comes out on a hunter is a doe, so this season lends itself to that."

One of the best reasons to harvest a doe at the tail end of deer season is for the quality of the venison, which is far better than that of even younger bucks, Garza said.

"If you want venison, and that's the only reason you're hunting, then there's almost no reason at all to shoot bucks," he said.

Outdoors Writer Ben Christensen can be reached at bc@riograndeoutdoors.com.