Deer Hunting Season

Tomorrow is opening day of deer season in this part of the world.  I am thinking about heading out early in the morning to see what I might see.  I don't know that I would harvest one if I did have the opportunity, but I am thinking about it.

Growing up in the Panhandle/South Plains area of Texas, I didn't have a chance to go deer hunting while growing up.  In this part of the state, kids are hunting deer before they are out of diapers -- almost anyway.  It is part of the DNA of most of the folks around here.  My desires to hunt were centered on game birds -- quail and pheasant.

Grandpa used to go deer hunting every year.  He and a couple of others had a deer lease at Sonora on Phil Jacoby's ranch.  When Grandpa sold the ranch at Muleshoe, the new owners didn't want the old trailer house that was on it, so Grandpa moved it down to the deer lease as a hunting cabin.  I'm sure it made a good one.

I never had the opportunity to hunt deer until sometime in the mid 90's when we were living in Justin, Texas.  A friend of ours had a hunting lease on a ranch near Bowie that was in the TPWD's Managed Deer program.  In January of whatever year it was, they determined the ranch had too many does and needed a fairly large number of them to be harvested.  Our friend asked me along with another individual to come and harvest one apiece.  He let me borrow one of his deer rifles and I was successful.  Frankly, it was purely a harvest because there was no hunting involved.  One shot and I was done.

Since we moved to Northeast Texas I have gone out hunting a time or two on our land.  I haven't shot anything, nor have I shot at anything -- deer that is.  I enjoy the hunt though.  Perhaps that's what I enjoyed about hunting birds as a kid -- the hunt.  It was a matter of pitting your wits and stamina against the game.  It was a challenge.

Most deer hunting is not really hunting, but it is a necessary harvest of excess animals.  Otherwise, the animals would overpopulate due to lack of predators and many would die of disease or, starvation.  If hunting/harvesting is conducted appropriately it is a crucial part of managing wildlife that helps it to flourish and be available for everyone's enjoyment.