Outdoors With Mat Taylor
Hunters should put their best foot forward

The 2007-08 statewide deer season has been open since Saturday. I assume many hunters already have bagged their buck. Studies during previous seasons revealed that a large percentage of deer harvested are taken the first weekend of the season.

And statistics in the new 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife Watching show Texas led the nation with 1.1 million residents hunting at some period during the year.

Nationwide about 12.5 million persons or five percent hunted in 2006.

It is important to note that the National Survey counts only participants who actually went hunting and does not represent the total number of people who consider themselves hunters but do not participate in the sport every year.

My point is that no more than 10 percent of the population hunts, so hunters are in the minority. But the latest polls I have seen indicate that although the majority of people in the U.S. do not hunt, they are not opposed to legal hunting in an ethical manner.

Some hunters are their own worst enemy, however. They conduct themselves in a manner that brings dishonor to the sport and can turn many people into anti-hunters.

One thing that really disturbs me is a hunter who improperly disposes of a deer carcass after the animal is processed. During the deer season, it is not uncommon for residents along rural roads to see and smell rotting deer carcasses, deer hides and heads.

When I hunted in West Texas, on every trip home almost every trash can in the roadside parks would be overflowing with trash, including rotting deer carcasses and hides. What kind of picture did that present to non-hunters?

I can't understand why hunters do this. Maybe they are just plain lazy. This is plainly against the law, as it is littering and illegal dumping. If caught, offenders will be cited by game wardens and fined.

Landowners or residents who see people dumping deer carcasses and remains should call the local game wardens at the Lampasas County Sheriff's Department, 556-8255, or Operation Game Thief at (800) 792-4263 to report violations.

If hunters process deer on their lease or property, the remains should be taken to a remote part of the pasture and disposed of there. Buzzards, coyotes and other critters will clean up the carcass in about 24 hours. All that will be left is a bloody spot on the ground, and that adds nutrients to the soil.

If the deer is taken to a processing facility, they will properly dispose of the remains for hunters.

Hunting is a long-time tradition in Texas, but hunters should conduct themselves in an ethical manner that will ensure the tradition is allowed to continue.

Now let me talk about some landowners who, in my opinion, are also unethical. A small minority of landowners over-lease their property. No matter how many acres they have or the number of deer on their land, they lease -- mostly day leases -- to as many hunters as they can pack in, and they do it year after year.

These landowners may make a lot of money, but at what expense to the land and the deer herd? The first few hunters may shoot a buck, and later does will be harvested. By the end of the season, most of the deer have been shot or have left the pasture. Pity the hunters who day lease the land the next season because they will be lucky to see any deer.

I learned this lesson the hard way, many years ago before I knew better. My father-in-law and I dayleased a pasture one weekend on the western edge of the Hill Country. There were several hundred acres in the pasture. Early the next morning, I climbed to the top of a small hill, sat down and waited for the sun to rise.

As dawn approached, I saw a lot of movement in the valley below. At first I thought it was deer, but as the day grew brighter it seemed there was a deer hunter behind every other bush. There must have been 20 hunters in that small pasture. Thank the Lord no one saw a deer because if they had, someone would have been shot.

Several hours later, we left thinking we had been bilked out of a two-day hunt, but we were alive and had learned an important lesson.

I don't want to picture all day leases as bad or unethical. I know of landowners who day lease, but they limit the number of hunters, and after a certain number of deer are harvested, they stop all hunting for that season.

Deer, like most other natural resources, are renewable, and the herd will prosper if properly managed.

My sermon is over. Good luck to hunters for the rest of the season.

Former Soil Conservation Service employee and longtime writer Mat Taylor offers his outdoors column for Dispatch Record readers. He can be contacted at (254) 518-2262 or via e-mail at mntaylor@agristar.net.