Fallow Deer

Fallow are the deer on the ranch sticker, and once you have seen a mature buck in full palm you understand why they got the spot. The antlers are the draw: broad flattened palms with points running off the trailing edge, more moose than deer in architecture, on an animal that weighs less than a South Texas whitetail. A good buck is genuinely impressive on a wall and unmistakable from across a room.

They come in four color phases and all four are on this property — the common spotted brown, a dark near-black menil, a pale one, and white. The white phase is not albino, just a color morph, and a white fallow buck standing in mesquite shade at first light is one of those things you remember longer than the shot. Which phase you want is worth telling your guide before the hunt rather than during it, because it narrows what you are looking for considerably.

The rut is the time to hunt them, and it is loud. Fallow bucks groan — a deep repetitive belching grunt, nothing like a whitetail wheeze — and they hold a rutting stand they will defend and return to. That behavior makes them huntable in a way few exotics are, because a groaning buck tells you where he is and then stays roughly there. Outside the rut they are herd animals with a mid-sized deer's caution and a good nose. A valid Texas hunting license is required for an exotic hunt, though there is no closed season on private land.