Axis deer numbers are reportedly cratering on some Hill Country ranches — not from disease, but from trapping. I investigate whether commercial trappers are quietly relocating the free-range herd into the resale market, and why Texas has zero way to track it. A field report companion to our axis deer deep-dive.

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Texas bobwhite populations have dropped more than 75% since 1980 — but it's not the fire ants, the feral hogs, or the hawks everyone blames. We dig into the real research on what's driving the crash, bust a few myths landowners have believed for decades, and ask the question every hunter wants answered: is there still a path back to the golden age of Texas quail hunting?

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In parts of the Texas Hill Country, axis deer now outnumber whitetail — and I dig into why that's a bigger problem than most people realize. I pulled together a controlled removal experiment out of Bandera County, a Texas Tech PhD dissertation, and over two decades of density surveys to show this isn't competition between the species, it's flat-out displacement. Axis deer aren't classified as wildlife or livestock in Texas, which means no season, no bag limit, and no state agency tracking their spread. One county alone is now estimated to hold 61,000 of them. I get into the regulatory gap, a disease-risk finding nobody's testing for, and whether eradication is even still on the table.

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Every year, 1.5 to 2 million deer-vehicle collisions happen across the U.S. — and Texas is one of the top five states for them. In this episode, I break down the real numbers behind deer strikes: when they spike, which parts of Texas see the most accidents, and what the law actually says about who's responsible for that deer once it's lying on the shoulder.

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A whitetail's nose has 297 million receptors to your 5 million — and no carbon suit or ozone unit fixes a bad wind. I break down how a deer's nose actually works, what scent control products are worth your money, and what's just marketing.

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Millions of feral hogs scattered across Texas are doing damage: rooting up floodplains, spiking bacteria levels in creeks, spreading tick-borne diseases to cattle and humans. This episode covers the full picture — ecology, water quality, disease risk, and the management tools that actually work.

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It spreads underground through fused root systems, hitches rides on beetles drawn to fresh wounds, and moves long distances in firewood. Oak wilt is one of North America's most destructive tree diseases — and it's expanding. Here's what it is, how it works, and how to stop it.

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Tyler Jones of The Element sits down with me this week, and we get into all of it. Where Texas actually ranks as a deer hunting state. The feeder debate and when they work and when they don't. The reality check every first-time public land hunter needs before they walk into the woods. And what the future of hunting recruitment looks like from inside one of the biggest platforms in the industry.

But the moment that'll stay with you is when I ask Tyler something he probably doesn't get asked very often — as a devout follower of Christ, does he think killing big bucks is luck, knowledge, or God's blessing? His answer is one of the best things I've recorded on this show.

The Element links below.

Spotify

YouTube

Instagram

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Every hunting brand in America wants you to believe that if your camo pattern doesn't match your exact terrain, the deer will bust you. They're lying — and the peer-reviewed science has been saying so for decades.

In this episode I break down what white-tailed deer actually see, pulled straight from research out of the University of Georgia, the USDA National Wildlife Research Center, and behavioral studies where scientists literally trained deer to respond to specific wavelengths of light. I cover why deer are dichromats and what that means for your orange vest, why visual acuity at hunting distances makes pattern detail irrelevant, the one UV problem that actually is real and most hunters completely ignore, and why Texas box blind hunters are paying for camo the deer will never see.

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That coyote howl at 3am — it means something different to every Texas land manager. In this episode, we dig into the actual science behind coyote predation and whitetail deer in Texas, pulling from Caesar Kleberg research, King Ranch studies, and TPWD data to answer the question every deer manager is asking: should I be killing every coyote I see? The answer is more complicated than you think — and understanding it could change how you spend your predator control budget this season.

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Get Outdoors and Find Your Peace