re: Do any of you guys use a deer management program?

You bet. We saved jawbones the first year on their direction and sent them in. They studied them, approximated our herd size, told how many does to harvest, their nutritional habits and what to plant .. etc.

Back then, we had no doe days where we hunted, had 1200 acres and about a dozen members and they had us harvest 20 does the first yr. After planting what they recommended and harvesting what they said, about 2 to 3 yrs later, the racks increased a good bit and the bucks averaged about 30 lbs heavier. The State has a great program and is really beneficial to hunters if they take advantage of that resource.

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bet. We saved jawbones the first year on their direction and sent them in. They studied them, approximated our herd size, told how many does to harvest, their nutritional habits and what to plant .. etc.

Back then, we had no doe days where we hunted, had 1200 acres and about a dozen members and they had us harvest 20 does

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This is spot on exactly what we had in Louisiana. in fact that 1200 acres is still leased by my uncle, but used as a company entertainment hunting property if I'm not mistaken. Not sure if they still use the program. We usually had 20 doe tags for 1200 acres. Kept jaw bones to age the deer we were killing. Only problem was that a customer wasn't going to put a whole lot of effort into not shooting a young deer, so you couldn't manage that well. The same attitude learned from that program is now used on two other properties used in the area that are hunted by paying members or family, and the results are definitely positive.