I agree the landowner does not have to have any knowledge of the program at all. Ours doesn't. If you have a written lease with your name on it, you are automatically the "agent". We have only 700 acres and had no problem getting in the MLD program at all. One phone call and meeting with the Biologist and been in it ever since.

I have been told by the TPWD in MP that as a landower I have to a party to the MLD program. That was as it stood 2 years ago.

Maybe it has changed since we started the program. This is our 6th or 7th year in it.

No idea.

how has its worked for yall so far bowslayer?

It has worked pretty well as far as growing mature bucks. We do see more mature bucks now than we ever did but they are 90% on game cameras and at night. There has only been 1 buck shot this year and that was pretty much the only one of the mature bucks that has been seen. They go nocturnal quick in East Texas. I would say that the program works well but you can't shoot what you can't see in daylight.

Here is one of our mature bucks. Pretty great deer for the area I hunt. Now if he would just show himself in the daylight!

I know where you coming from. We get most of our big ones in oct. I have shot both of my big ones in oct 137" nine point on oct 28th and this year a 165" 10 point on oct 29th. The one i killed this year had never been seen during the day. I had about 6 pics of him last year and another guy had one pic of him in august this year. If we didnt have the early season at least 50 percent of our bucks would have never been shot.

Thats a great buck. The long brows with alot of character is one of my favorite things about our area and yours too apparently.

good read on that...that hits close to home

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/huntingtactics/NAWhill_102605/

This is the one i got this year:

Yep, that pretty much sums it up...

I have not shot a buck on our lease since we started the program. Not 1. I keep thinking that the more mature bucks we get the more visible they will become but that has not been the case.

Great read i had to laugh when i read the part about the old buck waddling behind. My brother witnessed 8 bucks chasing a doe this year and the 8th one was an old potbellied 8 point with kickers way at the back of the line.

It deffinately isnt the case. 4.5 is about as mature as they get and still be seen where we hunt. We have killed maybe 6 out of probably 30-40 bucks in 15 years that were 5.5 -6.5. We have never killed one over 6.5.

I wouldnt have got my buck this year if i hadnt spent the last 3 years clearing an old logging road and a lane between some pines deep in my woods. He wasnt coming anywhere near the roads and pipelines.

Exactly. I posted the response from TPWD on here directly. It said that clear as day, but some know the law better than TPWD.

I wonder if this what the other East texas guys are experiencing - due to AR's the bucks are getting older and thus much harder to hunt?

I know this much: almost everyone on our lease has game cameras out the majority of the year. We're getting lots of pictures of more and more mature bucks but we're damn sure not killing them. 12 hunters on our lease and we killed a whopping 2 bucks this year. Very, very disappointing. But not surprising I suppose given the flighty nature of east TX whitetails in general.

maybe that's it, after being hunted for 300 years, the bucks finally figured us out! And then took the does with them!

And I am sure the hunting pressure has been the same over the last 300 years, right? Do you honestly think a mature buck is not more hesitant to step out during the daylight? How do you explain what the other East Texas hunters are explaining here? I know on my ranch in Central Texas once a deer hits 4.5 years old they become scarce during the daylight.

There's no doubt. But to say that's the reason we see ZERO deer in places we used to witness 20 a day is taking it to an extreme, as I attempted to illustrate with sarcasm.... It would not account for not seeing any deer.

15 pages later I think its safe to come on out

that really sounds like what was going on where the doe harvest quotas jumped way up on some of the MLD leases I was hunting. I hunted an area of about 800 acres all to myself that was below flood level (b/c I was the newbie/youngun and the old-timers didn't like messing with the snakes and all the water) and after the first yr slaughter, I was still seeing a decent amount of deer (stand was on an old logging road down through a hardwood bottom that I could cover a 500yd straight-away). But 3 years into it, my trips of seeing 10-40 deer dwindled down to where I would see whatever small group lived under my feeders. Buck sightings were way down b/c the older age class was there, but not near the number of younger bucks I was used to seeing.

...and finally...I got to thinking about a common thread amongst my friends that hunt ranches west and south of Deep East Texas (that don't have ARs) "Yeah I shot a cull buck(sic) this weekend. I've been watching that same 8 point for 4 years now, never was going to amount to anything." Soooo... If genetics don't have anything to do with narrow racks or wide racks, why is his buck a cull and my narrow rack (that would be a personal trophy) different. Why can he shoot a 4.5 year old and call it a "cull" and I can't shoot a 4.5 8 pt with a 12 31/32" spread. I know, I know, it's the LAW !!So tell me the state isn't trying to manage horns instead of herd. Idiots!
I am sick and tired of the inequity visited on hunters who just want to hunt. What damage are we doing to our younger generation of hunters? Especially those who can't afford to hunt on $3-5,000/yr leases? Are we all supposed to worship at the altar of the Almighty Horn? We better re-think this crap or lose future hunters to video games. And yes, I hunt Tyler Co., home of the oldest narrow rack deer!