Hunt with 'Dr. Deer' results in harvesting a great buck

CAMP VERDE — Funny how life twists and turns and can loop back around on itself in a way that closes one circle and opens another.

I felt that way last week, during a weeklong hunt at Camp Verde Ranch with deer management and common sense crusader Dr. James Kroll. Known variously as “Dr. Deer” and that blasted troublemaker, Kroll has spent his career as a professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, researching and tracking various animals on multiple continents. He continues in retirement.

His specialty has been white-tailed deer, which has led to plenty of anger and hard feelings when his research has bumped up against studies and research by Texas Parks and Wildlife. Kroll was the man who cast serious doubt on the state’s famed spike study in terms of its scientific reliability and findings.

I’ve been amazed at the blatant dismissal of much of Kroll’s research and the anger that it has provoked within state biologist circles but never had any reason to doubt his research. Kroll faced down charges he was doing bad research, but his status among the state guys fell even further when he was vocal and supportive of deer breeders in Texas.

But he doesn’t worry about it now. He’s actually hated but says, “I kind of think it means I’m doing something right,” Kroll said one afternoon as we shared a fake stump deer stand on Bobby Parker’s Camp Verde Ranch.

I had contacted Kroll in late summer and asked if he could design a distance survey protocol for the ranch. We were having trouble finding deer during our fall driving census counts and I thought maybe the change could help give us a better picture of our deer herd and the harvest targets we needed to achieve.

Kroll agreed to the challenge and agreed to come down to spend a few days hunting with me at CVR, possibly the best Hill Country ranch with no introduced deer or breeding program.

Prior to Kroll’s arrival, I spent a number of hours sitting and scouting for a proper deer for him to hunt. I finally found a mature buck late one afternoon two weeks before he arrived. I hadn’t seen him before but he looked good, with forked G2s and good mass, along with long times.

Kroll and I talked about what he wanted to hunt and I told him we would concentrate on that buck until we had ruled him out. When he arrived at the ranch a week ahead of Christmas, things were slow. The rut had long passed and not many deer were coming to feeders. They had plenty of food plots of oats that had been planted around the ranch.

Mornings were cool and afternoons pleasant as we settled into our routine of sitting and watching one food plot and feeder area. I was hoping that the buck would repeat his earlier trip into the area, when he bedded on a small hill behind the blind and only came in nearly at dark to chase some less dominant bucks away from the area.

Kroll and I were able to visit and talk about old times and the management program we’re trying to use at Camp Verde: only a limited number of older bucks harvested, shoot only the bucks we know as old but no spikes, keep doe numbers under control, get rid of as many feral hogs as possible, feed cottonseed as protein.

Essentially limit harvest to management bucks and a couple of trophy bucks each year. Kroll asked questions and shared his opinions about what he was seeing and where he thought we needed to go with the program.

There’s no big secret to quality management other than harvest restraint and age to give bucks and chance to reach their full potential in terms of antler growth. Parker has learned that after 70 years of hunting. The genetics for trophy antlers were there when he bought the ranch and they haven’t changed.

We were sitting in the blind Wednesday afternoon, the third day of Kroll’s hunt. We went early in case that buck or any buck showed up early. We’d been sitting for about an hour and had seen a small group of does 400 yards away at the far end of the food plot.

I glanced out my side of the blind and saw a nice buck moving quickly up the caliche road we’d walked in on and when I looked at the buck, I knew it was our guy.

“Here’s our buck, James, coming down the road. He’s yours if you want him.”

There was a problem, though. The buck made a sharp left turn onto a line that had him coming almost right at us. Kroll wisely placed his rifle in the window and waited for the buck to move into a shooting position.

When the buck walked under a big live oak just to our left, he was quickly moving past and threatening to disappear into the brush. I quacked out a rough “Aaaah” at the buck, stopping him in his tracks. Kroll’s shot was immediate and I could see the bullet make a killing shot through the buck’s lungs.

We sat for a moment, watching the downed buck before unloading and stepping out to see what we’d done. The buck was long and thick and obviously old enough. When Kroll checked his teeth back at camp, he proved to be 7½ years old. Pretty much past breeding but still in great shape.

When he went under the scoring tape, the buck measured a gross score of 158⅞ inches on the Boone and Crockett scale. His live weight was close to 190 pounds, a great buck by any standard and especially good for the Hill Country.

I have to say that I enjoyed that hunt more than any I had in years. The camaraderie is what makes hunting so great and keeps me coming back year after year.

Even if Kroll’s philosophy doesn’t mesh well with some other deer managers but isn’t it a good thing that deer managers can go in different directions.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Hunt with 'Dr. Deer' results in harvesting a great buck