Heath Herje of Oklahoma City wanted to harvest more mature bucks on his hunting land in southwest Oklahoma.

But it’s difficult to get big bucks roaming your land if your neighbors keep shooting the deer when they are young.

So seven years ago, Herje started writing emails, making phone calls and knocking on the doors of every land owner and hunting lease holder near him. His idea was to have everybody with adjoining properties manage the deer herd with the same goals.

He proposed that everyone would refrain from shooting young bucks (except for kids and first-time deer hunters) and only harvest mature whitetails. They would also attempt to keep a balanced buck-doe ratio in the herd by harvesting more does.