Wildfires May Make Deer Hunting Easier

TYLER — With devastating fires popping up all over East Texas, the wildlife that live among the now scorched woods have to find a new place to live with food and water. Nathan Garner with the Texas Parks and Wildlife office in East Texas tells KETK white-tailed deer hunting season may be good this year due to just that. “That combined with a lot of areas just don’t have the acorn crop this year, because of the drought — don’t have the hickory nuts, that’s always been a fall food item for deer too, and it’ll be lacking or in very short supply this year. So the feeders and that water — they’re coming to it, they’re gonna go to it and hunters should take advantage of that,” Garner said.

He says the deer may look a little different, though. “The deer are going be a little slim, their weights are probably going to be down — antler development may be below average because of the nutritional stress of the drought,” Garner said. Garner says the deer are mainly looking for food so they can put weight on for the winter. But water is hard to come by in some areas as well. Regardless, hunters can take advantage of the situation with feeders and water troughs. “They can be there hunting over water, hunting over deer feeders, and I think they’re gonna see a lot of deer this year and other wildlife at these locations,” Garner said. Garner says as East Texans go out to hunt this season, they need to be especially careful due to the dangerous wildfire conditions — even more so than previous years, as burn bans will likely still be in effect.