By Shannon Tompkins, Houston Chronicle

“Things look phenomenal for deer, right now,” said wildlife biologist Alan Cain, who, as white-tailed deer program leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and a life-long Texas deer hunter, has perhaps better insight into such things than just about anyone. “For deer hunters, there’s a lot of reasons to be smiling.”

Some of those reasons are being glimpsed across much of the South Texas’ brush country this month. Sequestered in waist-high seas of bluestem and other grasses or camouflaged in the dappled shade beneath thick, fern-like leaves of low-growing guajillo or the lacy, low limbs of ubiquitous mesquites are the curled, russet-with-white-spots forms of white-tailed deer fawns.

South Texas does are the last of the state’s whitetail herd to birth fawns during the annual fawning season — a season that begins in late spring in regions of Texas coastal prairie, peaks in most of the state during May and early June, and winds up in South Texas usually by no later than mid-July.

The varying regional peak fawning periods across the state have evolved their timing so that the young deer hit the ground when, on average, the habitat around them provides the best-quality shelter and food, upping their (and their mother’s) chances of survival.

‘One big green carpet’

This year, those chances appear extremely good. And not just in South Texas, which, as appears the case in most of the rest of Texas, has a bumper crop of whitetail fawns.

“Things are perfect for those fawns. It’s just unreal how good range conditions look, statewide,” Cain said. “I’ve been traveling a lot — from Kingsville to Texline, Marfa, the Hill Country, La Grange … all over the state. Everything is one big green carpet. You couldn’t ask for better conditions in most of the state.”

The reason?

“So much moisture,” Cain said.

Texas has hadan unusual stretch of wet weather that began early last autumn and has persisted into summer. Across the state, timely and abundant (in some localized cases, too abundant) rains have drenched the landscape.

Areas of the state where range conditions — and the deer living on that landscape — had struggled from dry, hot springs and summers enjoyed blessed relief. Those regions include the Panhandle, much of the Rolling Plains, South Texas, the Trans-Pecos and the western sections of the Edwards Plateau.

Some of those normally dry areas have received more rain in the last 10 months than normally falls over two years. The San Angelo area on the western edge of the Hill County normally receives about 20 inches of rain a year. Since last September, the region has been soaked with 50 inches of rain — 2½ times the area’s average annual rainfall and more than the annual average in Southeast Texas, the state’s wettest region.

“It started raining last fall, and it hasn’t stopped yet,” Cain said.

Early in May, for the first time in three years, no part of Texas was classified as suffering drought.

That precipitation has fueled an almost unprecedentedly widespread explosion of vegetation to the benefit of all wildlife but especially whitetail deer.

Timing and duration of these wet conditions have combined to create a nearly perfect cascade of positive effects for deer.

“What really set the stage was all that moisture we got last fall,” Cain said.

Plenty to eat

Those fall rains triggered extraordinarily good growth of forbs and browse that help deer get through winter in good, even great physical condition, reducing normal winter and early spring mortality. The extraordinary habitat conditions and abundance of food plus an often wet and muddy landscape also appears to have somewhat buffered deer from hunting mortality.

This last hunting season, many Texas deer hunters reported the combination of heavy cover and abundant natural forage resulted in less deer movement than normal.

“A lot of hunters said they saw fewer deer hitting feeders,” Cain said. “Deer had plenty of natural food; they didn’t need to hit feeders.”

Also, the muddy, sometimes flooded landscape made it hard for some hunters, especially in parts of South Texas and East Texas, to get reach some areas.

Those tough hunting conditions were reflected in the number of whitetails that Texas hunters took during the 2018-19 season. Statewide, whitetail harvest this past hunting season was down about 4 percent from the previous year, Cain said.

The deer population, boosted by that carry-over, enjoyed a mild and very wet winter that fueled a flush of cool-season forbs and other forage, which allowed deer to come out of the winter and early spring in “just outstanding” physical condition, Cain said. And the continuing rains triggered a riot of vegetation that keep the groceries coming.

For bucks, that meant a steady, abundant supply of the mineral-rich foods the male deer need to fuel the growth of new antlers. Those first several weeks of antler development are crucial in getting racks off to a fast start, and bucks across most of Texas have had that and more this year.

“Antler development should be above average this year,” Cain said. “It’s going to be a good year for bucks.”

The flourishing habitat also greatly benefited does, allowing them to maintain excellent body condition as they carried this year’s fawns. And when fawning season arrived, the lush landscape presented a wonderful nursery for the young deer.
Because does had plenty to eat, many developed and dropped twins — a phenomenon tied to great body and range conditions. The verdant landscape of thick grasses and leafy shrubs offered an abundance of cover for the young fawns, reducing chances of predation with the shrubs providing overhead cover and shade-preventing problems from heat.

“You can’t ask for more perfect conditions,” Cain said.

The result has been a flood of fawns this year.

Fawns are flourishing

During an “average” year, Texas’ annual fawn crop averages about 40 percent — a number based on how many fawns biologists, land and wildlife managers and others observe per 100 does counted during late-summer/early-autumn population surveys. In years when habitat conditions leave does in poor physical shape and reduce ground during a fawning season that is followed by a long, hot, rainless summer, the annual fawn crop can fall to half of the average or lower. During the prolonged drought that peaked with the record-setting dry conditions of 2011, fawn crops in some areas of Texas were as low as 10 percent.

With the near-perfect conditions, fawn survival this year appears to be significantly above average.

“I would be very surprised if we don’t see a fawn crop of 50 percent, statewide,” Cain said, adding that it could be higher than that in some regions and slightly lower in others.

A strong fawn crop like the one expected this year will pay dividends for the next several years, Cain said. A strong year-class of deer like this one is great news for hunters three, four, five and even six or more years down the road, as this year’s bounty of buck fawns reach heavy-antlered maturity and 2019 wealth of doe fawns birth the next generations.

Even if the rest of this Texas summer turns hot and dry — not very likely, according to long-range forecasts — it stands little chance of blunting the momentum the state’s whitetail herd has generated since this past wet autumn.

“It’s just now starting to get really hot. Temperatures in most of the state this year stayed relatively pleasant all the way through the first half of June. Regular rains helped with that,” Cain said.

And the amount of soil moisture currently on deer ranges plus the abundance of shady cover are a hedge that will blunt any potential negative effects should things turn off particularly hot and dry.

As the heart of Texas’ summer arrives, deer in most of the state are in great physical condition.

“I was out this week looking at some deer, and they looked just great,” Cain said. “They had that slick look to them. Really healthy.

“This has been one of those unusual years when it seems like every part of the state has seen just exceptional conditions for an extended period,” he said. “I’m expecting some really good things, and as a hunter I’m thoroughly thrilled and looking forward to fall. This is the kind of year you hope for.”