This is kinda of a broad question but I was wondering if anyone hunting the area could chime in. We joined a lease last year and now after two years on the place and hunting on average every other to every third weekend from bow season to close of rifle plus weekday hunts over Thanksgiving and Christmas I have seen less than 20 deer. This goes for pretty much everyone on the place but there is a strong disagreement as to the deer density in the area. Most believe we should lay off harvesting some deer to allow it to build up a bit, the others are inviting friends down to shoot more doe. We have 640 acres, a lot of cedar, several ponds, a creek running the length, a good number of white oak and live oak, and probably 12 active feeders. There have been several hunts this year and last where people never saw a deer, cameras don't show many either.

Am I expecting too much or is this typical for the area? The person "in charge" of the lease believes that there are unlimited deer on the place and is treating it as such.

Depends on what part of the county. I haven't hunted out there in years, but we own property in a few different spots around DeLeon. A couple had good deer, but others only a few miles away had none. In fact, we never had deer on one place until the last couple of years (we've owned it over 50 years).

Like most places around the state, numbers are improving. The place I hunt in Wise had no deer 25 years ago but has been covered up for at least the last 15 and improving every year.

Some areas are just like that. Doesn't matter what you do. Deer stay nocturnal. We have guys on our place who have seen that many or less. I have seen about 40 though and taken one doe. We have areas where no deer are seen anymore but used to be covered in them. Tracks are everywhere but nothing on camera and nothing during daylight except hogs and turkey. How many guys on 640 acres and how long has the main guy been there?

I am not in your county but many areas in north Texas are like this.

We are about 10-15 miles south of Comanche, almost in Brown Co. We have 6 on the 640 all of us new but the lead had hunted 2 miles south for years and claimed there were too many deer and that we would need to thin the herd. He's certainly doing his part, I know of 8 deer taken this year, 5 by his bunch. We were all OK with family or friends hunting but 4 out of 6 of us believe it should be off of a member's tag, i.e. It's a 4 deer county so no one (or their buddies) should take more than that. The lead person feels differently and doesn't feel there should be any rules or limits. I'm about done with it but I'm just wondering if my expectations are off. I figured if there were nocturnal deer only the cams, especially those on trails not feeders would have shown more activity.

Sounds like the lead guy is the reason many landowners are not leasing anymore.

NTX, buddy has a 1000 acre ranch near Rising Star and I can tell you there are some nice bucks around there but there is also a good amount of hunting pressure in that area. It is not uncommon for them to go hunts with seeing little to no deer then harvesting some nice ones. Nature of the beast I guess. Countywide, I'd say the deer density is not exceptionally high though from others I've heard there as well.

My son in law owns a processing plant in Comanche Co. They processed 1050 deer last year and are at 1200 right now for this year. I don't know how that relates to actual population in the county but more deer have been brought in this year.

My Mothers side of our family is from Comanche. The northern part of the county has some great deer just not the numbers. Southern Comanche has more deer, especially around Gustine. Sounds like your lease manager is the main problem. Cameras and actually spending time in the field tells the tale. If you're not seeing them on camera, they're probably not there. My cousins place near Sidney has seen deer numbers increase through the years. lots of Postoak and Blackjack with associated greenbriar makes for tough hunting around feeders. That used to be peanut country and grew some HUGE deer. Still some monsters taken each year in Comanche. I would guess an average density around my cousins place would be about 1 deer per 25 acres. If that's the case where you are you would have about 25-30 deer on your 640. If you don't have at least those numbers I would assume it's being overhunted.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I thought this year might be different but found out yesterday that lease managers son and a friend were down there to shoot a doe (sounds like mostly to train a dog...) and was more than irked. I'm hoping they don't connect!

We hunt SW part of Comanche Co...part of the ranch actually straddles the brown county line. I see from 15-40 deer per hunt. We shoot 1-3 150" deer each year. We hunt on 5600 acres.

I hunt SE Brown county.
I don't see a lot of deer, but I always see deer. This was the first year after AR rules, that some 140-150's showed up.
What I would look at is can you put up with the lease manager and his rules. If not move on along and you can become a lease manager and make up the rules.
Could be your on the wrong part of that 640 and others are not really telling the truth on what they are seeing in their cams. Could be the rules are such that the manager, family and friends are all hunting for free, you just don't know it.
Yes the area has lots of deer over the county but at the same time also has lots of presure from hunting.

This is all good to know. I've hunted just about every corner of the place, everybody is OK with others hunting their stands if not there and I've also done quite a bit of hunting not on any feeders, still hunting, etc. We have seen (on camera) better deer than I had anticipated but just not near as many as were advertised. Guess I'll just try to put in as big a food plot as I can fence in (we have cows...)and stick it out another year.

I hunt south of Comanche, right down hwy 16 and fm 1476 is, we have pretty good deer density. last few years we have had some nice bucks around us but this year it seemed like they were a little more scarce but we have tons of does. everyone I hunt with and the people we brought down has shot 2 to 3 does. This year we had an extra 25 game management doe tags and that has been like that these last few years too.

Sounds to me like you need a biologist to survey the place and establish deer densities and suggested harvest rates. From there, you would come up with an allowed harvest per member. I not hunt with someone like that. Sounds like they are using a bunch of other lease members to fund their own family and friends hunting....

Jlambe, I just checked on Google Earth, as the crow flies I'm just over 5 miles SE of the 16 - 1476 intersection. Sounds like maybe we should be seeing more doe.

We saw more deer this year than last (got skunked a lot of hunts last year) and we theorized last year that perhaps the previous people shot it up. They were told at the beginning of deer season that they would not be renewed by the LO
We had hoped there would be a rebound but the lead says that there are hundreds of deer on the place we just don't see them because of all the trees. If I wasn't hunting with my dad and FIL I would have already called it but dad wants to stay... Huntalot, I agree with you. At least that's how I feel it's going down especially since his son is only a couple years younger than me with I'm sure a lot more expendable income yet he is basically a "free" member as there are seemingly no advantages to membership.

sounds like to much pressure, maybe good numbers in the area but deer will avoid areas with high pressure.

I used to go from Dallas to Brownwood every day. About 5 miles south of Comanche there was a hill on the left side of the road where I would see 5-20 deer every morning about sunup. The Thursday morning before gun season started there was 3 travel trailers parked right in the spot where I saw the deer every day. The deer were probably in the next county. If only they had known.

I can't speak from your county but i talked to a friend who owns land on the west side of the main highway that leaves my small town. We hog hunted and hang out but never deer hunted because there were no deer. He instead would hunt on some property on the east side of the highway. His place never had any deer, but a mile across the road always had deer. I thought/think it is unusual and am not sure why deer aren't on his place.

If other members are seeing/shooting deer and you aren't, could you be doing something wrong? Or deer may notice when your own the property and leave. They get real smart.

Depends on the area. I've hunted the western line this past year and saw a few deer. The area has had a population boom with hogs and it seems that they have run off the deer. We have a few coming in on the cameras at night but that is about it.

I used to hunt in that area on CR 410. We saw lots of deer also. None of the 150 class though. We actually hunted in brown county but the county line was on the neighbors property.

I hunt in that area also. We turn on CR 245 , which is basically the other side of the road from where 1476 is. Our place is on the comanche/Mills county line. We see lots of deer also. Our buck/doe ratio is pretty good also. There are not a lot of houses in the area or traffic on the county road and that helps out a lot. The deer do not seem to be nearly as nocturnal as some places I have hunted .

We have had a lease outside of Gustine since 1996. The population of deer has been pretty bad. We use to never see a single deer in bow season and would only see 4-5 total in the first two weeks of gun season and then they were gone for the season. The past 6 or 7 years we have been running feeders and cameras and not shooting much of anything and we have been seeing more deer show up. The deer in our area migrate a lot. We see different deer every month and they never last more than a month. We have never taken a huge deer, but people say there are one or two around. Our deer appear to be about 2 1/2 years old and the bucks average about 12 inches wide. Nothing older and nothing bigger.

The major problems we have had over the years are the hog doggers and poachers. The hog doggers think they can hunt our lease without permission. We also have evidence of poachers at least once a year. This year we also had two stray dogs.

Northern Comanche county around Beatie and up in that area have lower density and are hard to locate but usually when you find the buck he is a big sum B. Southern Comanche county toward Priddy/Newburg are has a very high density. You can go check any big grain field in the evenings and it will be loaded. I have hunted Comanche County for the last 21 years. The deer are there. Sounds like you got some BS going on you need to handle.