Many years ago, when I was still living in Upstate NY. My father and I had the opportunity to manage property along with about 11 other hunters and the surrounding properties. There was 13 of us in all. My father and I solely hunted on about 256 acres of land that only us were granted permission to hunt.
Our hunting range spanned over 5 property lines and consisted roughly of a little bit more than 1100 acres of privately owned land in total. On adjacent properties other hunters were allowed to hunt along with us.
After my second hunting season, the group of guys got together and and decided they wanted to do some "deer management"
Some guys wanted antler restrictions, other guys wanted to focus on buck to doe ratios, some wanted to focus on culling off only the largest does.
Either way, everyone's ideas of management varied in some way or another. Regardless, we had opportunity at our fingertips! Or so we thought. Land owners already had abundant crops in the fields, and the hardwoods where full of nut trees ranging from the varietals of oak, to beech nut and hickory on some of the ridges. The area also showed promise with the amount of browse and slash for winter time forage. And a cherry was added to the top of that Sundae because a farmer also had crops of winter wheat and oats in a couple of his fields. Summer forage was also abundant with a large alfalfa and clover field that got hayed at least twice per year. But corn was probably the most abundant crop that we had. Either way, there was a large variety of food available and we experience large bodied deer at our harvests. To give you an example, a 2.5 year old deer coming from those woods had no problem reaching field dressed weights of 170 pounds or a bit more.
My 3rd season came around, and the stage was set for us to manage the herd. Opening day was over and we drove up to one of the farmer's houses. There were a couple deer hanging in the barn. Much to mine and my father's surprise......"Along with a couple of the other hunters also" We seen that 2 of the hunters had 2 button bucks and a doe hanging from the rafters. ( These where the guys that voted for antler restriction mind you) Neither hunter clearly knew what a " mature animal was.... seeing the button bucks weighed about 80-100 pounds respectively.
Most of us hunters walked away pissed off. We couldn't believe that these guys couldn't tell the difference between a mature deer and a yearling deer????
Well a couple weeks went by and another hunter shot a 3 pointer that was a year and a half old. I said...."What the hell, I have been passing up basket rack 6 points and you shoot this thing????"
From that day on, it caused dissension amongst the hunters of the property and a bunch of the guys said... "screw it!!!! From now on...if it's brown it's down." And thats the type of stuff I had to deal with on the surrounding properties for years and years to follow. If you let a deer pass on your property, those other guys would shoot it for sure.
In my experience, management of any kind will NEVER be accomplished unless EVERYONE that is involved works hard to achieve the goal at hand...... and even more so important, everyone has to be on the same page as to what deer management is.