Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered with Kevin Burke

Those opening-day doves didn’t ride the front down from Kansas. Most of them hatched within a few miles of the sunflower field you’re sitting on. White-winged doves went from 110,000 birds to 12.9 million. Eighty-four percent of them now live in town — urban density is 86 times rural. We go through 9,000 years of Texas dove history, 60,000 banded birds, why early season is homegrown birds, and the...

Texas has held steady at 1.2 million hunters for years while the state's population exploded — and about a third of license buyers don't come back the next season. So how do we fix it? The conventional answer is "get kids into it." But TPWD's own R3 plan quietly says something different. In this episode: what the data actually shows, why dove is the right first hunt, the $7 y...

A team from Illinois and Cornell measured 246 individual cone cells in largemouth bass eyes and found only two types — one green, one red. No blue cone at all. Then they tested it on live fish: bass couldn't tell chartreuse from white, or blue from black. The takeaway is four buckets: bright, green, red, and dark. Get Outdoors and Find Your Peace Subscribe to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered on...

In 2008, researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science put an electrode on the eyeball of a live spotted seatrout and asked the fish directly. The answer doesn't match the tackle wall. Two color channels instead of three. No ultraviolet at all. And the fastest eye of any fish in the study. I break down what the science actually found, correct a popular claim that this study proved tr...

Ponds went up 14%. Blue-winged teal went down 11%. Both numbers are from the same report, and neither one is a mistake. Texas gets nine days of teal this September — the 19th through the 27th — for the second year running. We break down the arithmetic that decides season length, why this year's numbers are different from last year's, and the subtraction nobody's doing out loud: we'...

Alan Bell was one of the first anglers throwing big swimbaits on the Highland Lakes. Twenty-five years later he has 85 bass over seven pounds, and roughly 18 over ten. He talks glide baits, hand-carved Japanese baits that cost $300, eight-and-a-half-foot rods, and why he pulled every Senko, spinnerbait and crankbait out of his boat and never put them back. Plus the counterintuitive one: he owns fo...

Texas opens statewide Sept. 1 for the first time ever, and the Special White-winged Dove Days are gone. What changed, what'll get you cited, and why that Sept. 14 date existed in the first place. Get Outdoors and Find Your Peace Subscribe to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinburke_tfgn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Texa...

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. Get Outdoors and Find Your Peace Subscribe to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered on Spotify...

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? Subscribe to Texas...

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 cl...

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. Subscribe to Texas Fish and Game...

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. Subscribe to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinburke_tfgn Facebook: https://ww...

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. Subscribe to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instagram: https://www.insta...

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. Subscribe to Texas Fish and Game Unfiltered on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instagram: https://www.instagram.co...

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...

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...

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 — an...

Everybody's got an opinion on baiting deer — but most of those conversations are less about science and more about ego. In this episode, I puts my cards on the table and then dig into all of it: the real pros, the honest cons, the food plot vs. feeder debate, and the one angle that should matter most to every Texas deer hunter right now — CWD. Is baiting ethical? Is it hunting? Is there actual...

Two Texas Parks & Wildlife Biologists Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Managing Whitetail in the Hill Country If you lease or own land in Central Texas, this episode is required listening. I sitdown with Kory Perlichek and Evan McCoy— Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists covering Mason and McCulloch Counties — for one of the most information-packed whitetail conversations we've ev...

Cable Smith has been one of the loudest voices in the Texas outdoor world for over 15 years. As the founder and host of the Lone Star Outdoor Show, he's built a platform around one simple idea — the hunting and fishing lifestyle is worth fighting for. Cable doesn't hold back on the biggest threats facing Texas hunting culture, the high fence debate, trophy hunting, public land access, and...

If you're serious about managing a healthy whitetail herd, doe harvest isn't optional-it's essential. Whether you're managing 100 acres or 10,000, this is the conversation your herd needs you to hear. -Why doe harvest is the foundation of any serious deer management plan -What happens to your herd when you don't manage doe populations -Why neighbors matter more than you think I...

Texas Pond Fixes with Shan O'Gorman. Fisheries biologist Shan O'Gorman (@aquatic_biologist), reveals why most Texas ponds are mismanaged—and how to fix yours. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinburke_tfgn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TexasFishGameUnfiltered/ Get Outdoors and Find Your Peace

The fall flounder run is one of the most iconic traditions in Texas coastal fishing. But most anglers chasing flounder through the passes don't know what's actually happening to this fishery — or why it matters. Southern flounder populations have been declining for more than 30 years. And buried in the research is a piece of science that almost nobody in the Texas fishing community is talk...

Every fall, mature bull redfish stack up on Texas Gulf beaches and near the passes to spawn. Most anglers know the run exists. Almost nobody knows the full story behind it. In this episode we cover the complete life cycle of the red drum — from larvae drifting into Texas bays on tidal currents, to juvenile slot fish on the grass flats, to mature bulls that leave the bays permanently and only retur...

In this episode we break down the Texas speckled trout spawn; much longer than most realize. Website: https://www.texasfishandgamenetwork.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/texasfishgamenetwork Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TexasFishGameNetwork/ Get Outdoors and Find Your Peace