highest deer density areas of AL?

Looking for advice here please.  I'm a traditional bowhunter, living in B'ham.  I'm selling a property in the city that I own and I'd like to use the proceeds to help fund the purchase of about 40 acres of rural hunting land. Since I hunt with a longbow, I try to get extra close to deer and hold out for good shot angles. Therefore, having adequate "shot opportunities" is what I seek above all else.  Hoping some of you can recommend specific areas in Central AL that you know are extra densely populated with whitetails where I might want to search for a property?  I'm not concerned with trophy racks....I'm looking for an area that is infested with deer and close encounters could likely be more frequent. For example, I've heard that the Camden / Millers Ferry area is just covered up in deer.  Is that true?  Are most undeveloped properties along the AL River that way?  And are there other towns that folks might recommend where the deer density is especially high?   I don't mean at a county level...I'm asking about hot spots at a more specific level please.  (I hope my question doesn't come across in any unintended way....it's just that I hear hunters in some parts of AL talk about routinely seeing more deer in one weekend than I see all year, and I figure if you are going to hunt, that being where the deer are is key.) Thanks all.

Everything will depend on your neighbors no matter where you end up and what the surrounding deer density is. Good luck searching for property

257 has a pretty good 40acres. Hes looking to sell it.

If u can find land connecting to the back of oneonta sports fields you'll do good...

Bullock county is crawling with them

I blood track deer for folks in southeast Alabama across a large area and a lot of different properties……The deer density from one place to another is all about how the understory habitat is being managed….By far the best areas are where you have a vast amount of acreage that is unbroken and managed for maximum understory forage production. Enon Plantation is a good example This the reason people always bring up Bullock Co when this question gets asked…That’s the one big thing separating it from pretty much any other area though. You could recreate that same situation or a similar one anywhere in Alabama by following the same general blueprint.

What do you mean by understory forage? Cutover or select cut?

What do you mean by understory forage? Cutover or select cut?

Stick bow the Camden area does hav lot of deer - as Somebody said earlier - having good neighbors helps lot also - Marengo county well known and Sumter area - demopolis - mertlewood areas - several Other areas I could Name but that is a start In the area I were asking about

Arrowhead community in Montgomery.

An example of understory vegetation would be the young plants you see sprouting back after a stand of timber has been cut and the overstory removed….overstory is basically your larger trees. This allows full sunshine to reach the soil. The first wave of plants that come in are called pioneer species……just like the first settlers that moved in and colonized the US……the pioneer plants are colonizing the new clear cut in a very similar manner. They were tough, resilient people who paved the way for future generations…..They may have been simple folks with few provisions but they were crucial for laying the ground work for the prosperous country that would later come from the work they did. Your pioneer plants are just the same.

There’s 5 stages of successional plant communities…..the first 3 are called early successional and they’re the ones that provide the wildlife like deer and turkey with the food and cover they need to survive…. These different plant communities are very diverse with 20, 30, 40+ species present that all preform a function in providing the animals with the cover and nutrition that they need throughout the year. These plant communities also protect the soil from erosion and maintain the fertility and overall productivity of the soil. The more quality understory vegetation you can create in one area…..the more potential you have for producing an abundance of game.

Dog fennel

Years ago I hunted in Lower Peachtree in Clarke County. The property bordered the Alabama River and was at least a mile off the dirt road to access it by. One of the members on here owns that property now, but I dont remember who it is. There were more deer there than I could ever imagine in my wildest dreams. I dont remember now how many I killed there with a bow, but it was unreal at the wildlife that was there. Alligators were everywhere in the back sloughs, turkeys were seen every hunt, and hogs were a problem that we knocked a huge dent in! Talk about a great hunting area, that was it. I was 5 hours away from it and we only leased it one year because we didnt see any really good bucks on it-all the bucks had funky looking racks! I many times would like to go back and hunt that area again with my bow. I bet there were only a couple of times hunting there that I didnt kill a deer. I literally wore my Daddy out having him help me drag them out of the swamps. I have no idea what it is like now, but in the early 90's this would have been the place to be.

At one time the area between Demopolis, Linden, and Myrtelwood had as many deer as anywhere I have ever been. I don’t know if it is still that way, I am sure some of the guys that live or hunt that area can chime in.

There are some absolute studs hanging in those woods.

Neighbors neighbors and neighbors are the key anywhere you go

Not nearly what it once was. The QDM doe massacre did a number on most areas of SW AL mentioned in this thread. Some pockets still have good numbers, but not whole counties. And some areas I would consider very poor deer numbers - even a lot of those traditional counties that hunters think about.

Little off topic but food for thought since you stated you traditional bowhunt. Consider investing in some type of camping setup and taking advantage of the 700,000 acres of public land in Alabama. I've hunted and camped Alabama WMA's for over 40 years, and have been really happy with the experience and made a lot of good friends. Most of the WMA's allow you to hunt them with a bow or crossbow any day of the season. The gun hunts only happen on specified days and you can avoid those as a a bowhunter if you don't want to gun hunt. I've hunted primarily Barbour County WMA since 1975 and can't say enough good things about it. I'm from the Brirmingham area as well and there are some really good WMA's within an easy drive. If you haven't taken advantage of Alabama public hunting land, check it out.

Deer population is still good in Marengo and Sumter counties. There are pockets/properties that are better than others.

Having a general area to start your search is a good idea. The population will fluctuate a lot with each specific property. I have been blessed to hunt several areas that had both numbers and quality deer. I hunted a club where 100 deer sighted on a day of dog drives was the norm. A few miles away there were spots that didn't hold any deer. Generally, the highest densities will be in the river bottoms. Before purchasing, look hard at the sign but be ready to pull the trigger immediately. You won't be the only person looking for high density tracts.

I hunted that area 35 years ago. People were hunting with the 'if its brown it's down' management technique and it really decimated the herds in the eighties and nineties. When we first started hunting there you would see doe groups of 12-15 every time and just a few years later you only saw mothers with one or two fawns together. We had a 2800 acre club and were killing 100-120 deer a year on the property.

In the 70s and early 80s the black belt was the only areas I know of that had high density. As a state it seems the populations are much more fairly distributed. Almost every county has an area that most of us would consider “high density”.

Yep..guntersville state park...very high density..fine place to hunt

Didn’t the state park go through some major changes over the last couple decades as a result of that unchecked deer density?

I would guess that is an unsustainable long term plan.

It completely depends on the habitat and how its managed long term as to what is sustainable…..The amount of forage and cover will be what dictates how many deer any given property has the potential to hold…..Maximizing understory vegetation by allowing sunlight to reach the ground across as much of the property as possible is how you go about reaching the properties full potential….Areas where I track deer that have the highest population densities are those that receive 90-100% sunlight reaching the ground. These areas also have the successional growth reset every few years using fire. There are other tools as well for resetting succession like mob grazing cattle. This method promotes more fertile soil conditions long term than fire and therefore increases the potential for even greater population densities of wildlife. Both are acceptable tools for management though.

I appreciate everyone's comments and helpful insights. Good discussion!

Stay as far away from Blount county as you can. No deer or turkeys here.

I am in no way being sarcastic...marshall county is a worthless void...do not waste time or money here if you wantin somethin to hunt...ducks..mehh...fish yes..deer an turkey..waste of recources..an it will only get worse

No deer down here. Nothing to see....move along.

Same thing, same area, slightly more acreage. It honestly needed it for a period of time (at least the place I was on did). When we took it over, weights were way down, with mature does weighing only around 85-90 lbs. Visible browse line head high across the entire place. They were like cockroaches. We hammered them for the first 3 years, shooting around 150/yr. Planted pretty much everything that was wide enough to get a disk down. The avg doe weights jumped up to about 115 and then we backed way off and maintained killing roughly 50 does per year off it. The more we planted, the more deer we would suck in off the neighbors. Like you're saying, it was nothing to see 30+ deer pretty much every sit. I can remember one afternoon watching a 40 acre cutover and had somewhere close to 50 deer in it at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Hunted several times as a guest on a 15,000 acre very exclusive lease that adjoined the Boykin's private place there in Washington County west of HWY 43. I've seen 120+ deer at one time in a 30 acre field, several times on that place. That was back in 88-89. The only thing that outnumbered the deer on that place were the turkeys. It was absolutely unreal.

I see yall stingy heffers kilt all the deer for ize born...preeshyateit😁

Yer welcum.

My hunting partner and I have hunted together for 32 years, literally since we were kids. We've moved around a lot trying to stay on high quality land and some of the areas that stand out for sheer numbers of deer in all of those years are as follows:
1) A 1200ac lease of Buchanan land we had off of 41 between Portland Landing and Elm Bluff.
2) A 1600ac lease of private ground we had between Myrtlewood and Marengo County 17. Hwy. 69 split our lease. Hogs on the river side, none on the east side. Tremendous numbers of deer there. Had 22 in bow range on a water oak flat at one time, came away from that encounter with nothing. Too many eyes on me to get a shot.
3) A 2500ac lease of private ground in Macon County on Caleebee Creek, just north of Hardaway. Swamp Chestnuts in the bottoms and white oaks on the ridges. That land never disappointed. Had to have a pair of waders to hunt it after November, but there were tons of deer and some real bruisers in there. Hunted 75 days one season and killed 13 deer with my bow.
4) Cahaba River bottom around Suttle. Hunted there a couple of years ago and saw deer most every sit. Water oaks line the river on the east side of the river with pine plantations on the west side. Watched a bunch of them swim over to our side to hit the water oaks. Never saw a hog on the place.

Just my experiences in these areas. I'm sure there are other spots far better that we haven't had the opportunity to hunt.

The closest place to B'ham is down past Tuscaloosa in West AL. Greene and surrounding counties. Easy to get there you can drive it same day. High deer density and good genetic potential.

Many of the counties that people would traditionally think are still the mecca for deer hunting are a far cry from what they were 20-40 years ago. They are like Allbarn football coming off a National Championship and going 8-5. The agriculture is long gone and they are still living off the stories of big deer from the 70's and early 80's when 1/2 the county was in Soybeans. That's been long gone. Other areas of the State are better for genetics either way.

Of course your worst nightmare is investing money and a ton of time into 40 acres only to have a pack of doe killers move in by leasing a piece of property nearby and blasting everything they see. That happens with regularity.

Wasn't many spots better than the Portland/Hit and Miss area back in the 70's

We hunt in the Tallapoosa River area, and we are loaded with deer.