Lee,
You took 10 deer of 240 acres 8 of which were bucks and it was not a good year. I see no way that 240 acres in TX can support that amount of harvest. I think you are not going to have a good year next year if you think this was a bad year.
I would guess that maximum capacity for the 240 acres would be one deer per 10 acres or less. If so, you took 41.6 of the estimated herd. If you had a buck to doe ratio of 1 buck to 2 does, you in theory killed 100% of the bucks. No property could sustain that.
Downhill is correct. The deer do not belong to a piece of land, they have a range and fences- even tall fences- are at best an annoyance to them. Yes, we took 8 deer and 6 were bucks from the 240 acres we have access to hunt. The property is not terribly wide ( maybe less than a few hundred yards in spots) but is more than a mile long. And, it is a natural travel corridor, bordered on one end by blacktop and on the other end by a river. We do not have a deer herd that resides on our property. But, ALOT of deer traverse our property going from one place to another.
The biggest surprise of the year for me is that there were so few spikes seen. Typically, everyone gets at least a shot on a spike. Last year we had an informal biggest spike contest in order to encourage the guys on the lease to shoot a spike. Too many of them were just coming out for the "wall hanger" and not doing enough for herd management. I hope the trend continues this year with most of our young bucks having branched antlers. We have a very high doe to buck ratio, due to the restriction of only shooting does during archery season; and we could use a more rigorous doe elimination policy on the property. It may be hard to believe but, the typical yield from this property is one "shooter" buck, one "spike" buck, and 1 doe for everyone on the lease- that put in the time to hunt. My dad and uncle have been on the lease since 2005 and that has been the trend.
In most of the country, deer herd populations are reported as deer per square mile. In Texas- and not necessarily on high fenced property- the are areas where the density is reported in deer per acre...
LancetKenyon, everything is a trade off. We have a lot of deer and you don't have to drive very far to find some good ones in high concentration. If you want to pay for it, you can just about have one drug up to you on a leash for pre measurement before you pull the trigger. But, sitting in a box for several hours overlooking a feeder, or a food plot, or an ag field, or a sendero, or whatever has its drawbacks. My most enjoyable hunts were "unsuccessful," and didn't occur in Texas. For all of its faults, California has some absolutely beautiful land, and is a challenging and wonderful place to hunt. We enjoy very high success ratios in Texas, in part because we know enough not to pay someone $80,000 to tell us what we already know. But, the hunt sometimes leaves something to be desired. At least you get in state rates on your tags...