Deer hunting season officially started in Texas this past Saturday. This will be my first time to ever deer hunt in Texas although I've hunted deer many years growing up in Montana.
In Montana, baiting any game animal is illegal. The hunting there is nearly all spot and stalk. In Texas, baiting is perfectly legal and is very widespread. You can even buy "Deer Corn" at the Supermarket! When I moved to Texas to go to college, I was shocked at the way they hunt deer here. I joked that it wasn't "hunting" deer, it was "shooting" deer. I felt that way pretty much until last year when I got back into hunting and bought some property here in Texas. Since that time I've talked with lots of people about hunting in Texas, and now even have my own feeder running!
I primarily set the feeder up to try to get an idea of what wildlife I have on my property more so than as true bait, but my conclusion is that it doesn't really work very well as bait for anything but raccoons. The pigs that come and visit it are very sporadic and the deer that come and visit it are more regular but even though the feeder is set to only put out feed during the day the deer primarily come visit it at night. I have a camera setup to take pictures of wildlife as they visit the feeder and this does allow me to get a good idea of the wildlife that is on my property which is really my main reason for setting up the feeder.
I'm completely clueless about hunting deer where you sit somewhere and wait for them to show up or walk by, so I thought about setting up a stand to watch the feeder, but I haven't yet, and am not really sure how well that would work. Most people try to setup trying to catch the deer going to or from the feeder from what I understand.
After not seeing any all summer, I'm finally starting to get some good bucks on camera. My game cameras got pictures of 3 decent bucks within the last week and two of them are in several pics including DAYTIME pictures now that the rut is approaching.
Just a little input on how my perspective has changed on baiting/feeding. It sounds like you are going to be shooting tame animals that come running to the dinner bell when the feeder goes off, but that's not how it works out. (I spent 2 hours watching the feeder tonight and nothing showed up).
There is almost zero chance at spotting and stalking in the thick brush, and with limited agriculture with food sources there aren't really any established game trails going to and from a field where you can hang out and watch from a stand. I think that even with the feeders it may be more difficult to hunt my new land than it is to spot and stalk back in Montana.
I just went down to the land to check the cameras and hunted a couple hours this evening. I had a small 8 point walk up within 25 feet of me when I was changing the card on one of my cameras, I'm not sure he ever saw me. He walked on down the trail a little and checked and worked on a scrape and walked on. I saw him about 1/4 mile down the creek and took some pictures of him with my regular camera. By allowing the younger deer to walk and not shoot them, this allows them to grow a few more years and hopefully become fully mature and come closer to reaching their potential.
I'm going back down there this weekend and probably a couple days next week. I hope I see one of the big ones next time I'm down there!
That's it for now. Nathan
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