The Johnson Ranch is located in the scenic Texas Hill Country. The ranch is in southern San Saba county and is on the northern edge of the Llano uplift region. This is an area known as some of the best deer hunting in the state. The Johnson Ranch was founded in 1996 by the Johnson Family, Avery and Maurine Johnson and their son and daughter-in-law, Rodney and Tracy Johnson. The ranch is comprised approximately 1,000 acres of pristine hill country habitat made up of rolling hills and live oaks. In addition to hunting, the property operates as a working cattle ranch with Angus and F1 cattle.
Basic Management Philosophy
This ranch has been intensively managed for whitetail deer since 1996 and the results have been very impressive. We have had 180 and 190 class deer taken from this ranch but we are very conservative in our harvest of these high end bucks. We are in this business for the long term and feel that it is very important for these tremendous bucks to remain on the ranch as long as possible to do as much breeding as they can. We want to ensure that these genetics have been passed on to as many offspring as possible.
Our ranch is just under a thousand acres. We are under high fence which allows us the ability to conduct many of the necessary management techniques that are required to produce exceptional whitetail bucks. There are many factors in producing quality deer, but any game biologist will tell you that the single most important factor in producing better deer is to allow bucks with desirable traits to reach maturity. By allowing these bucks to reach maturity, they are able to attain their full genetic potential and pass on those desirable traits to the next generation.
The whitetail deer must also have a sufficient natural food supply. The best way to ensure that adequate food is available is to limit the number of deer in your herd. It does not matter where you are or what your ranch conditions are, there is always a limited number of deer that a range can support. We work closely with a Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist to maintain a proper stocking rate of both deer and livestock. We do provide the deer a very high quality protein supplement. This is a supplement only and it does not replace improper habitat and land management.
In closing, we must mention again that we have not imported and do not plan to import any deer. We also do not have any deer pens. These are native Texas Hill Country deer. There are no ear tags or tattoos to see here, just big native deer.