Managed Lands Deer Permits

LISTEN: (3 Min, 42 Sec)

IN RECENT YEARS, more and more landowners and hunters have started taking advantage of our Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s “Managed Lands Deer Permit”, or MLDP. After the property is on an approved program, landowners and those who hunt those properties have the ability to hunt whitetail deer from the beginning of the archery season in the fall though the end of February.  The two MLDP options open to landowners are the Harvest Option and the Conservation Option. To learn more about these two programs go to www.tpwd.texas.gov website.

I am fortunate to be involved in a couple of hunting properties that are under a MLDP Conservation Option. Immediately after our annual DSC Convention and Hunter Exposition at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas in early January I am headed to the deer woods.  

If you have the opportunity to hunt on MLDP property, January is a great time to hunt for several reasons. One is that any deer taken on MLDP property do not count against your hunting license whitetail deer limit.  As a matter of fact, you cannot use one of your license tags on deer harvested under this program, you have to use a tag supplied to you by the landowner.

January too, is a time when in some areas there is a secondary rut.  That secondary rut usually does not involve grown does, most of them have already been bred, but six-month old doe fawns that are experiencing their first estrus period.  The number of six-month old does that come into heat in January varies from area to area and is really based more upon the nutritional status of the local deer herd, the better the nutrition, the higher percentage of doe fawns that get bred.

Several years ago, when MLDP was first begun, on one of the ranches I managed we saw several bucks chasing younger six-month old does in mid-January.  I had seen the same the previous two years. With our MLDP in place I waited until the latter part of February, then we shot ten does born the previous spring.  Eight of those ten young does had been bred and had developing fetuses.  On that property deer never went hungry a single day.  Through our wildlife management program, we fertilized native browse plants and mast-producing trees, planted browse species, planted food plots that provided forage throughout the year, and made supplemental feed available on a daily basis.  Many properties and hunting groups now do the same.

The interesting thing about that late rut is that we saw mature bucks we had not seen during what would have been the regular hunting season. That in itself is another reason to hunt in January, if you can legally do so.

On my lease west of San Angelo, as many other places once February arrives, deer are best hunted on food sources.  We are fortunate in that bucks on that property usually do not start casting their antlers until the middle of March. Thus, if we still have MLDP buck tags, this is a great time to take a late season buck.

While I like to harvest does as early as possible, usually in October or as soon as hunting seasons allow, if property is on a MLDP the late season is also a great time to take whatever does still need to be taken. But be careful not to shoot a buck that has already cast his antlers.

If you do not have access to hunt MLDP property, and even if you do, January and February are also perfect months to do some predator hunting and control.

 

Email Larry Weishuhn at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

< PREV

Return to CONTENTS Page

NEXT >