HILL COUNTRY
"Our hunters are used to seeing deer out at least 100 yards from their stands," said biologist Mike Krueger, "but they couldn't see out that far last season. We had so much herbaceous vegetation that stand visibility decreased significantly.

"That doesn't necessarily mean the deer were acting a whole lot different, although they had a lot of natural browse available to them so they didn't really have to move a lot. But it does mean that they were harder for hunters to see, to locate."

Krueger expects Hill Country harvest totals to be down a little as a result, but, he was quick to add, limited visibility might not be the only reason hunters didn't see as many deer as they have in previous seasons.

"It also could be due to our numbers being down a little," he said, "and not really in a bad way. We have landowners who are doing a good job of managing their numbers to balance deer with available habitat. I feel like we are closer to the manageable numbers we would like to see. Of course, there are pockets where there are still plenty more deer than there should be, and pockets where there aren't as many as the habitat will support. That's always going to be the case."

Krueger's comments suggest that Hill Country hunters may truly begin to see a real difference in buck quality as the sex ratio and age-structure of the region's herd gets more in line with what nature intended.

"The quality of the deer harvested last season definitely was a lot better," Calkins said, "and there is no doubt that the impressive habitat quality heading into the season is a major reason for that. But we also had pretty good carryover from the 2006-07 season, and we saw older, more mature bucks coming in last season as a result."

There's little reason to think that trend won't play out again next season because there undoubtedly was higher-than-average carryover for the second year in a row throughout the Hill Country.

"We all know that trying to predict next deer season is a crapshoot," Calkins said. "And you can't paint the region, let alone the whole state, with one broad brush. However, I do know from anecdotal information that we have some areas in the Hill Country that are definitely showing a good downward trend in numbers. And we definitely will have some carryover again."

Hill Country hunters should expect to see higher numbers of older, more mature bucks as a result. Success is at this point keyed to weather. According to Calkins, it quit raining about the time last season started and hadn't picked back up again as spring arrived. If that dry trend continues, habitat quality will suffer. That's definitely a good-news/bad-news proposition: the former for stand hunters who'll get their extended field of visibility back; the latter for deer that'll have to contend with somewhat less-desirable food in their world.