Hunt Harvest App for Texas Hunters

It’s almost turkey hunting season in Texas and I’m excited! Not only are the toms getting a little restless but so am I after a cold, wet weather. The spring season for turkey starts on March 21, but a new app can help hunters document their harvest. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department recently released the My Texas Hunt Harvest App for iPhone and Android devices, which allows hunters to report harvested game in real time on smartphones or tablets.

Texas hunters can use the app to record the number of harvested game animals, including eastern turkey where all animals must be documented. Hunters can also view harvest history, including dates of location of each hunt. This will help us remember the details, but should not limit our ability to embellish our stories around a campfire. The Texas Hunt Harvest App will be most convenient for hunters in east Texas. Successful hunters can check Eastern turkey harvested without having to visit physical, official check stations. This will save hunters both time and money.

My TX Hunt App

Wild turkey hunting season continues in South Texas counties until May 3. Youth hunters get another shot May 9-10 if needed. The annual bag limit for turkey is four gobblers, but as in the past only one may be an Eastern turkey.

Believe it or not, turkeys were almost extinct in Texas a century ago. Careful population management and support of landowners and hunters have brought the famous bird back from disaster, according to TPWD biologists. State figures show that turkeys now inhabit 223 of the 254 counties in Texas.

The Eastern wild turkey is the most populous of the five subspecies of turkeys — in the eastern U.S. It not as prevalent, but certainly as sought after, in South Texas. Eastern birds are bigger than the two other prevelant turkey subspecies in Texas, with body weights of around 25 pounds. The other subspecies are the Rio Grande and Mirriam’s wild turkeys. Rios are found just about everywhere west of IH-35 and Mirriam’s turkey are limited to the northern Trans-Pecos in Texas.

Deer Management: Suburbs are Food Plots for Deer

Managing suburban deer populations is a challenge for both home owners and wildlife management professionals. So when the phone range, I knew it was going to be a tough day. The phone call came from a suburb known to have a robust white-tailed deer population and have emotionally charged debates about their “issue.” Somehow, a buck had gotten wrapped up in a tangled mass of volleyball net and 3 heavy posts. Adjacent the “court” was a lush, green food plot consisting of a yard overseeded with annual ryegrass. The net covered his eyes and his mouth, and we weren’t sure he would be able to eat or drink on his own.

This is a familiar scene in urban, suburban, and rural suburbs with overabundant deer populations. Because deer management in communities can be emotionally charged, and lead to conflict between neighbors, it’s a good idea to get assistance from professional wildlife managers. A one day workshop will be offered this May to provide that guidance, entitled “Addressing Conflict with Deer in Our Communities.” The workshop will give residents, communities and municipal leaders the tools, information, and management strategies they need to resolve conflict with deer and about deer.

Control Urban Deer Overpopulation - Whitetail Deer Management

Topics will include:

  • Why do white-tailed deer thrive in our communities?
  • Evaluating your situation and identifying measures for success. How bad is your deer problem?
  • Identifying and building support for deer management solutions
  • Real world case studies: What worked and what hasn’t?
  • Deer management tools and solutions
  • Regulatory authority versus management responsibility: Whose job is it?

When we arrived, the white-tailed buck seemed to be waiting for us, less than a hundred yards of the landowner’s “food plot.” After a few false starts, and just at the right moment, we made our move. The deer saw through the ruse (and the netting), skirted between us, and gracefully jumped over a 6 foot privacy fence and trotted casually away. All 3 of us rolled our eyes and immediately packed up our fancy equipment. If the buck could do all that, he didn’t need our help. This suburban deer was going to be fine.

It turns out, as is often the case, that the problem was never about the deer. It was about the different human opinions on how to manage the deer. We spent the next few months providing recommendations to resolve the underlying conflict within urban environments with a proactive, rather than reactive approach to managing the local deer herd. I hope that both this community and your community joins us in San Marcos on May 29th for a great workshop.

Richland Creek WMA Hunting & Birding at Wetlands

Richland Creek Wildlife Management Area is known for producing large-antlered white-tailed deer, but it’s man-made wetlands also offer excellent duck hunting and birding opportunities. The north unit has had wetland impoundments for some time, but recent and additional wetland development has increased surface water, making the area even more attractive to wintering waterfowl and shorebirds.

Source: “The benefit of the a wetlands project such as this one is it actually accomplishes more than one goal,” Kramer said. “It is much more beneficial than other types of wastewater and water supply projects because it provides habitat for birds and other types of wildlife.”

While the bird counts vary throughout the year, Symmank said they have soared as high as 30,000. Last week, about 10,000 birds were hanging out, many getting ready to head northward for the spring migration. By April, most will be gone, having flown off for the Dakotas, Canada or even Alaska. Besides hunters, the wetlands are also becoming an increasingly popular place with birders.

During field trips over Feb. 27-28, the Texas Ornithological Society counted 84 species of birds on the wildlife management area’s two units. The 5,209-acre North Unit contains the wetlands while the 9,029-acre South Unit in Freestone County consists of bottom-land hardwood forest.

“The bird population down there — it’s just gone crazy, it’s just increased exponentially,” said D.D. Currie, the regional director for Piney Woods region of the Texas Ornithological Society who splits time between Arlington and a second home in Henderson County a few miles from the wetlands.

Currie, who has traveled all over Texas to see birds, said she can now find most of them at the wetlands. “Five years ago, you wouldn’t have seen a white-faced ibis there but now you can see as many as 30,” Currie said. “There so many bald eagles out there, they’re like gnats. Now there’s a dozen out there with a breeding pair on the South Unit.”

But this time of year, ducks are the predominant species. The northern pintail duck was the most prevalent last week, but there also were plenty of northern shovelers, gadwalls, green-winged teals, blue-winged teals and mallards. While the ducks showed a preference for the water, a juvenile bald eagle and a northern harrier hawk alternated between flying over the wetlands and perching atop nearby trees.

“A lot of pintails will be leaving soon, and we’ll see a flush of more blue wings coming through,” Symmank said. And this summer, they’ll be replaced by a new population of birds, including wood storks, roseate spoonbills, great egrets and great blue herons. Hunters are finding plenty of ducks in the wetlands public hunting areas.

During the duck season that ended on Jan. 24, almost 2,600 hunters came to Richland Creek and killed 7,833 birds, according to Parks & Wildlife statistics. While duck hunting has declined in popularity across some areas of the country, it is growing in Texas. The estimated number of duck hunters climbed from 54,675 in 2008-2009 to 99,514 in 2013-2014, according to Parks & Wildlife.

“I don’t know why,” Symmank said. “It’s just becoming more popular in Texas. The TV show “Duck Dynasty” is real popular. That may have something to do with it but I don’t know.” Many first-timers come to public lands to try out duck hunting and they often have questions. “It’s more complicated than some other forms of hunting,” Symmank said. “I end up walking people through on the phone about what permits they need.”

Because of the nasty weather — and with duck season being over — the birds were largely undisturbed last week. But hunters from as far away as Minnesota and Wisconsin were camping at the wetlands and searching for feral hogs. For birders, Currie said, it is important to be aware of the hunting seasons when visiting the property.

“It’s an active wildlife management area so there could be hunters there,” Currie said. “It’s pretty primitive so you need to take a lunch and take some water and be prepared to go the bathroom behind a tree. You’ll need to allot quite a bit of time to see it all out there.”

Spring Turkey Hunting Season Closed in East Texas?

Let’s face it, spring turkey hunting is fun when the gobblers are hot to trot! Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer birds in East Texas, prompting Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to look at closing the spring season in the eastern half of the state altogether. Most years between the early 1990s and 2011, fewer than 200 turkeys were recorded at the mandatory check-stations, where successful East Texas hunters were required to bring their birds.

We are talking about East Texas, so who knows what’s being killed east of IH-45, but with less than a couple hundred birds making it to through check-stations each year it seems like the right decision would be to stop all turkey hunting in the region. I can only imagine there are numerous problems with habitat and reproduction that are making things tough on existing eastern turkey populations, so it’s no wonder that even the TPWD turkey stockings have far from a raging success.

Turkey Hunting Season Close in East Texas

Source: A recommendation to suspend the spring turkey hunting season in almost half of the East Texas counties where a limited season for eastern-subspecies wild turkeys has been allowed. If approved by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, which will consider the proposals for adoption at its March 26 meeting, the changes would take effect September 1, 2015.

The proposal to close the spring turkey hunting season in all or part of 14 of the 28 East Texas counties where a month-long spring season currently is allowed comes as wildlife managers try to address what has been a frustrating, decades-long and mostly failed attempt to re-establish eastern-subspecies turkeys in the bird’s former range.

Since the late 1970s, TPWD, working in cooperation with U.S. Forest Service, other government agencies, universities, landowners and the National Wild Turkey Federation, have stocked approximately 10,000 wild eastern turkeys, trapped in other states and transported to Texas, into East Texas. The effort is aimed at re-establishing the subspecies of turkey native to as much as 10 million acres in the eastern third of the state, but which had been extirpated by the 1940s through a combination of over-hunting and habitat loss.

Farm & Ranch Land Management: Learn the How-To

There is a right way and a wrong way when it comes to farm and ranch land management. Often times, folks just keep in doing what they’ve always done because that’s how it’s always been done, regardless of whether it’s a good thing or not. If improper, then the habitat degrades and become less productive for ag production and the wildlife value decreases. As a farmer, rancher, or land steward, you know that one of your greatest assets is the land you work with, and managing that land can be tough due to weather conditions, environmental pressures and high input costs.

The Whole Farm/Ranch Land Management Program is designed to help you enhance the health, productivity and profitability of your land through the practice of Holistic Management. This hands-on course is taught by Holistic Management Certified Educators and experienced agricultural producers, wildlife biologists and other facilitators. Be prepared to get your boots dirty because the course is taught on holistically managed ranches and farms. The land management class covers Holistic Decision-Making, Grazing Planning, Biological Monitoring and Land Planning.

The six-day course is taught over approximately 6-12 weeks in 2-day increments, so you’ll have plenty of time to start applying what you have learned, while you’re still enrolled in the course. Each day starts at 9 am and ends at 5 pm and there will be plenty of time to network with other ranchers interested in improving their ranching skills. Your learning curve will be shortened by being on a ranch that practices Holistic Management and has built out water and fencing infrastructure and completed successful land improvement projects. At the completion of the course, you’ll have a personalized Holistic Goal, a Biological Monitoring Plan, a Grazing Plan, and a Land Plan. You’ll also be well prepared to:

  • Make effective farm/ranch decisions with the big picture in mind
  • Improve the health of your ecosystem with effective ranch management
  • Improve your rangeland and pasture productivity, water-holding capacity, soil health and wildlife habitat by applying effective ranching techniques
  • Build the landscape you desire and mitigate the effects of drought with better forage utilization and grazing planning
  • Improve land health and wildlife habitat by understanding and working with key wildlife habitat indicators
  • Create a monitoring plan to track performance and analyze natural resource issues
  • Create a land plan that will pay for itself with the right prioritization and investment strategy
  • HMI Holistic Management Whole/Farm Ranch Land Planning Course, land planningManage grazing and animal impact to improve soil and forage standards and build resilient landscapes
  • Know when to and how to destock
  • Create infrastructure and development strategies to create more profit

GET IN THE CLASS: Sign Up Now!

How to Find a Turkey Roost

The spring turkey hunting season is just around the corner, so to increases your chances of success it’s always good to know how to find a turkey roost. You can find wild turkey roosts by identifying roost trees and listening for calling birds. Wooded areas in more open habitat make it a no-brainer; littered with feathers and mixed with droppings indicates a good roost site. In lare forested areas, it can be difficult to pin-point birds since turkey have numerous places to roost.

In general, the “how-to” of finding roost can be shortened if you narrow the search to areas likely to have turkey roosts, such as creek bottoms and wooded ridges. Hunters can also listen for birds flying up in the evening. The most sure method, however, of finding a gobbler roost is to elicit gobbles from roosted toms, which are known to gobble at dusk to alert hens in the area of their presence.

Find Turkey Roost

Source: In general, wild turkeys roost on primary branches in trees with at least 20 to 30 feet of branch-free trunk; this helps foil predators. Older and larger trees (with a trunk 20 inches or larger in diameter) are preferred. But I’ve seen birds roost in giant cottonwoods that two men couldn’t wrap their arms around, and in frail mesquites that looked like they couldn’t support a quail.

Sturdy branches that grow at right angles from the trunk are requisite for easy perching. This essential structure can be the key to identifying which species and size of tree that turkeys prefer to roost in. Find big trees with wide-spanning branches and you just may locate a roost. On one slope it might be a red oak, on a neighboring slope, maybe it’s a grand old sycamore tree
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In many regions of the country, you can predict the favored species of roost tree. In the Midwest, East, and Northeast, oaks (especially mature white oaks) and basswood make prime roosts. Birds often choose pines in inclement weather because their limber limbs tend to bend (and not snap) in stiff winds. In the South and Southeast, cypress, sycamore, live oak, and loblolly pine are favored. On the prairie, river-bottom cottonwoods serve, especially those bordering open fields. In the West, mid-slope ponderosa and other pines provide ideal roosts.

Locate concentrations of droppings and feathers beneath large trees. Squeeze the droppings to assess their freshness. Chalky droppings indicate a retired roost, but moist droppings are a sign that it’s being used and may be a good spot to hunt. Sometimes birds use the same roost daily. More often, turkeys work a circuit of sites, especially in big woodland habitat. Roosts are often near feeding areas, because birds forage hard after coming down in the morning and early evening.

When you locate a good spot, listen for that first daylight gobble to ring out to confirm that your assessment of roost preferences is correct.