I'm in Montague County. We finally got rain and everything turned green. I planted oats and they are mostly ignoring it.

The does that I've seen with yearlings by their side are pretty skinny.

I've seen some pretty healthy looking yearlings.

The bucks look good.

I just heard that we can expect a reasonably mild winter.

Who knows?

We are in Foard and this year I've seen the fewest doe and a lot of little bucks. I was lucky enough to get the only shooter buck I've seen all year. The guys at Raggedy Creek told me the same thing. How would anyone really know?

I thing about the drought this yr is that for alot of counties this is the 2nd yr of bad drought and there's no real relief yet. Parts of the hill country are in super bad shape young trees that are in areas of good drainage have died. even sage looks effected. There's been somewhat of a green up of winter forbes but it wont be enough to save the day at least not in portion of the hill country.IMO

The main casuality on my Eastland County place was the fawn population. We lost most of them but nature with a little help from my protein feeders seem to have brought the rest of the herd through the bad year in pretty good shape. In excessively dry years, the mesquite trees load up on beans and provide a significant part of the deer's diet. At the peak of the bean drop, my deer actually quit the feeders. During the height of the stress, the does probably kicked off the fawns inorder to survive themselves. Bottom line is that with no fawns nursing and pulling the does down, lots of nature's emergency rations and a lot of dollars poured into protein pellets, my surviving deer are in excellent condition.

I didn't know that about mesquites producing more beans during tough times.

Normal year = normal bean crop
Dry year = heavy bean crop
Summer 0f 2011 was heaviest I have ever seen.

Now the question is what if 2012 is also exceptionally dry? Will there be another bumper crop? Will the trees have enough reserve to do it twice in a row? My Cowboy Botanist credentials are a little weak. Hope we do not get to find out this coming year. I was around in the 50's when we had several back-to-back dry years but I was more interested in what I could shoot with my Red Ryder BB gun. Didn't pay much attention to the bean production. I do remember my Dad worrying about the horses eating too many of them.

I think the correlation to the buck die off comes from the stress and strain put on the bucks with the normal and secondary ruts they go through. Yes all deer will suffer, but bucks that don't have the normal fat storage on them to survive not eating much at all during the rut, will be in particularly bad shape.

Fawns are few and far between, and does are fewer than last year.

Consider this some deer will die but antler production will be down due to nutritional defencies.

Old age, hollow teeth, malnutrition, predators, all cause problems. I hunt on a 12mo a yr. feed high fence operation...
Our bucks seem to reach quite an old age if not killed. I got
a cull last season w/hollow teeth, several colors of hair, and
his hair and hide pulled inside of his ribs..Guessed him at 13
min. wgt 120lbs...The bucks being killed were from 150 to 188lbs
on the lease..Does avg 94lbs early...when waiting late to get them they drop to 85 to as low as 73 lbs..Have advocated taking
doe and culls early due to quality of meat, reduced use of habitat, and wear and tear on the males..DD

that could be true but you can always get a well where deer will come to and get water

Sounds like raggedy creek just wants business.