It's been a grind

I really don't have a point to my post, other than I was just going over my hunt log for the year. Since December 28th my sons and I have made 12 hunts. I'm thankful to be able to have that time with them and share the outdoors with them. With that said, we have seen exactly 3 deer from the stand in those 12 hunts. We've hunted long gaslines, power lines, thinned pines, food plots, hardwoods, cutovers, you name it. There just aren't very many deer. I know many of you around the state can't wrap your mind around this phenomenon of going weeks without seeing deer, but it happens. I've talked to others that have had double digit hunters on stand over the weekend and they did not see a deer....all weekend.

Once again, just a rambling post as I sit here and ponder my own bad fortune of hunting. Surely someone can join me here.

By the way, y'all go ahead and add me to the list of those looking for a club.

Sorry about the hard luck. Out of curiosity, what part of the state are you hunting?

On our lease it has been the same way for us. My son and I have only seen deer while in stand once this year. We took a break this week and a hit an old faithful spot on public land and had a good hunt though.

Are you running cameras Brandon?

I know why our deer numbers are down.

Central Alabama




Yes sir. Not a whole lot showing up there either. Oh, and to add insult to injury, had one stolen this past week.

We have one real good buck that would go on the wall that showed up couple weeks ago. If it weren't for him, there's no way we would be subjecting ourselves to this misery.

You hunt private restricted access or public land?

You have them over corn?

If you had one stolen, you might have discovered some of the problem...unwanted guests.

I don't know if I should say our sightings have been down or not. They are definitely up from last year, which was only three deer, but are definitely way down from years past. Two years ago, I'd see as many deer in one sit as I have all season. Of course our timber was cut, then we have trespasser problems. Lots of things working against us.

Ive hunted as much as possible and today was the first time seeing deer. You are not alone.

Little history...

400 acres, private restricted access. We are basically the only ones hunting it. 2 other guys in with me but they've hunted about 5 times combined all year.

No 4-wheelers. Truck/Electric cart/foot only.

We have killed two bucks off of it this year. Last year we killed one buck and one doe.

We've seen a few more deer than last year but that plays in to exponentially more hunts this year than last.

One thing for sure...we can't blame it on warm weather, no acorns or poor food plots this year.

It's been really slow on my places in SE Madison county and NW Marshall county. I have seen 5 deer while on stand all season and they were all in the same sit, I did see 6 does and babies out in one of my hay fields yesterday evening. That's the first time I've seen any out there all season. I have had 3 pictures on 1 unicorn in the last 3 weeks on our farm here in Marshall county. This is the worst season I've had in 21 years as far as seeing deer goes. It's frustrating trying to get my 10 y/o daughter into it when we don't see any deer. I sure hope it improves in the next couple of years.

QDMA........
Quality Deer Mass Assassination

Years of biologist input .......
Kill more does. You guys got to kill more does.
Well, we did. Deer got bigger in weights and antlers....when you saw one. There's a happy medium somewhere, but I like to see deer when I hunt. About a decade of killing the crap out of does is catching up to both Mississippi and Alabama. Add to that the predation that uncontrollable coyote populations have on the fawns and you equal less deer to see.

Just my opinion.

5 hunts, no sightings. Have pics on cameras but have yet see one in person

[quote=Jstocks]QDMA........
Quality Deer Mass Assassination

Years of biologist input .......
Kill more does. You guys got to kill more does.
Well, we did. Deer got bigger in weights and antlers....when you saw one. There's a happy medium somewhere, but I like to see deer when I hunt. About a decade of killing the crap out of does is catching up to both Mississippi and Alabama. Add to that the predation that uncontrollable coyote populations have on the fawns and you equal less deer to see.

Just my opinion. [/quote You sir are spot on IMO

You're definitely not alone. I've been about 6-8 times and saw two deer. One spike and one small-racked buck. We just picked up this lease this year so I didn't know what to expect. It's about 70 acres of planted pines in Pickens county. The pines are pretty good size and have been thinned. Someone had previously hunted it, but didn't really make any improvements. We had some bush hogging done and put in four food plots. The irritating part is the place is slap covered with deer, they are just very nocturnal. I get tons of pics and there are always tracks everywhere, just don't see them. I hunted in Fayette county for years around big corn and soy bean fields and got spoiled. I got used to seeing deer all the time. These days, a few hours on Saturday morning is about all I get. Wait all week to go, don't see crap, repeat. I feel your pain.

Can your area be improved or is it worth it? If not move on.

Spreadin' a little tough love!

You are definitely not the only one. I would venture to say that there are more hunters seeing the same thing as you are then the other way around. I have watched many a die-hard Hunter around here just give up and start fishing during the winter if they didn't have the resources to go to greener pastures.

Lots of crappy areas to hunt in the state. It’s amazing how many areas have very few deer. My only advice is to find a better place. Easier said than done.

You must be hunting close to my land. If it wasn't for cameras I'd swear to you there was no deer on this piece of property. This is no lie since bow season has came in I have seen a whopping two deer which were bucks and I shot one. This is a beautiful piece of land but I guess there isn't many deer. I have hunted this place at least once a week since the season has came and just two deer. It blows my mind. I've got another lease about ten minutes down the road and you can see deer all day long there.

If y'all have killed 2 bucks on 400 acres that's pretty good IMO. Are you hunting established houses or stands? Sometimes over pressured deer will pattern us as hunters. Hunt new areas that seem too thick or aren't hunted. Enter and exit at different times. May as well mix it up can't do much worse than already.

We've had a bad year at our lease in heiburger compared to the normal im told. We have seen a few deer but not like I was expecting for the sign that was there all year. I believe next year will be better.

This, if you wanna see deer people need to quit shooting does.

Same here, I’ve been in a stand 49 times and seen 14 deer. Changed clubs this year because of the same reason ( Fayette County to Walker county). Alabama deer hunting sucks

I didn't start this to be a qdma bash or that the hunting in all of the state is terrible; simply observation of how low the population is in some of the areas in the state. Tough to get/keep a kid (or most adults) interested. There is not a reason to point fingers at any one cause. I'd love the thought of just moving on but in reality, that's a ton of work to pull stands and other equipment and just walk away after two-three years of work that you put into a tract...only to have an optimistic new lessee come in with the same expectations we did and be disappointed in two more years. Rinse, recycle, repeat.

If you have stolen cams, you also have additional predators roaming the property at will. Until this problem is eliminated the deer problem will continue.

I live on 96 acres that has never had a doe shot on it but due to surrounding hunters shooting does for way too long the deer population is not even worth hunting anymore. I plant one food plot in the middle with hopes of saving a few with the hope that it will one day be the good hunting it was when I was growing up on it.

I got a new lease in St Clair County this year since it was a closer drive to the house. I haven't seen a single deer on the place. I've got beautiful food plots, cover, water, pretty much anything a deer could ask for.....but no deer. If I keep the place I won't be killing any does for a long time, that is if I ever see one to not kill.

420 acres in Wilcox Co. (not one of the fancy fenced in joints)

...26 sits...
...seen deer 4 times (15% of sits)...
...total of 8 deer seen (6 does and 2 spikes)

This is why we need the state to restrict doe killing. You can't just tell each land owner to manage his herd however he pleases. The whole point of having game laws is because each land owner can't be trusted to manage the herd and still have a flourishing population. And with big tracts of land becoming smaller and smaller with every generation, the need for state or region wide restrictions is becoming even greater. One land owner with 40 acres can just about wipe out a deer herd for a square mile under current doe season laws.

I can’t help but believe y’all would see more deer on public ground.

It's hard for me to believe that someone can go all season in this state without seeing a deer while on stand....Some of yall need to sharpen up on your hunting skills.

We have 50 acres of hardwoods 3 miles deep in the woods of brindlee mtn. Off 231. You gotta drive 3 miles down a dirt road to reach it. Maybe 5 houses on rd. We been running 2 cameras for 2 months on 2 corn feeders and salt blocks. We have hunted the land one time this year and check cams every 2 weeks. Its private, secluded and hidden. We have about 6 does hittin feeders every day. Seen one 4 point one time. Seen one 2 year old 8 point once on cam. 2 bob cats and one coon one time. Owned property for 5 years. Old owner didnt hunt it. Most neighbors dont hunt and they say they only shoot big deer? We are on the east side of 231 and its woods for miles all the way to guntersville. We aint seeing the bucks at all. I think my partner is gonna start blasting does when we do hunt it. If he shoots the does then we have nothing at all. I cant believe we aint seen the 2 bucks but once. I am puttin my efforts into public land and plan on watching our 50 acres to see if it changes. It was a punch in the guts

I have joined clubs that I letteraly went to public land to see deer. There are some properties that have been hunted out so bad they are literally deer deserts these days. Every deer that sticks its head out gets shot at. 3 of the last 4 clubs I joined i saw less then 20 deer at all year. Heck I started hunting public land and was thrilled to see 25-50 deer a year after those clubs.

Has nothing to do with skills. It's all about location. I've been on both sides of the fence. My "skills" haven't changed, but the location has. Granted, I don't get to invest the time in it that I used to.

Turkey_Neck is correct. There are some clubs, large and small that have been totally shot out with the unlimited doe days and coyote boom. There are people on this site that don't believe it, but there really are big pieces of property in Alabama that basically don't have enough deer to justify allowing a hunting season.
I don't think it's people peeing at their stand, four wheelers, or not hunting the wind. The deer just are not there.
I don't know how many years it would take to get the population high enough to justify hunting some of these places, but I can imagine it would be more than a couple of years of nothing being killed.

It is mathematically and emotionally IMPOSSIBLE to allow land owners, club presidents, club boards, timber companies, or farmers dictate what needs to be done on their property. The state opened up a can of worms when they changed the bag limits, and now they have no way to ever fix it without angering thousands of people that want to do it their way. It's a total mess for some people that don't have a place that still has a hunt-able population.

If you dont know the land then bankhead can be a desert. Took me 5 years to learn where to go. I been all over zone a and b to realize there are only a few good spots in there. The forest is my next project. I covered a little bit of forest but have a long way to go. It basically sucks unless you live close by. I have public land close to me thats way better but bankhead is so huge it draws me back. I can kill the fire out of hogs but its too much work getn them out.

No doubt the doe killing has a lot to do with it, I think the coyote population explosion does, too. I am learning how to trap, and am hopeful it will make an improvement. Does anyone know what the estimated percentage is for the number of fawns killed by predators? I sense it's gone up dramatically in the last 10 years as coyotes have become so much more common in Alabama.

biologists and the state fought the "coyotes are killing fawns" idea for many, many years. Anyone who spends time in the woods in JulyAug knows that the yotes kill the snot out of fawns.

I have personally seen two yotes, one of them a huge male, kill every damn fawn on a 500 acre high fence one year, he killed prolly 70% of the fawns the year before by himself. Granted there was not a lot of good fawning cover available but every damn one of them???? I trapped the younger yote and owner shot the big male, Had plenty of fawns the next year. Go figure.

It's true there are tons of places like that with little to no deer. I can hunt on property I have in south AL and see plenty of deer. In the northern half where I lease it is really hit or miss though. Plenty of food, water, and cover, and not much pressure, but simply little to no deer. I have a camera on a nice fertilized food plot in St Clair that will go over a week without a single picture.

You can't have coyotes and unlimited doe seasons. You can have one or the other but not both. And the state needs to admit we have both right now and wise up before a generation of hunters totally quit. They gripe about decreasing license sales, but they will really feel the revenue hit when people quit hunting entirely since their land has no deer. Most of these unmanaged pine forest timber company leases cannot handle the doe killing. And that is a huge chunk of this state. We can't burn or do a whole lot to improve habitat and coyote killing only has minimal effect of the coyote population, so limiting doe killing is the only option.