Doe numbers

Unless something really changes over the next 3 weeks there’s gonna be quite a few counties see a 25-40% reduction in the number of does killed this year versus last…..Counties like Blount, Marshall, Franklin, Madison, Jackson, Jefferson, Lauderdale, Limestone, Marion, Randolph, St. Clair and others. Mainly your northern counties...Colbert is even sitting at 50% right now…..What do the Aldeer experts attribute this decrease to?? Are people just shooting less does in these areas??

Less deer to shoot in Limestone, just my observation where I live. Shooting baby bucks

It appears there are less deer here than there have been the last couple years. Im not seeing nowhere close to the numbers i have been, about 25% really. A neighbor a mile or so away found 4 dead does on his place this fall. I hope thatsnot whats going on here. Im hoping my big plot being sorry as crap is what is going on. Hoping the deer are still here, just spread out. We seem to have more 2yo and 1yo bucks than normal, but you can tell them apart in pictures. Seems to me every year it isnt what you hope and expect it to be, alot like farming. Once in a while its better. But if i had to guess the answer to your question is just less deer in general in blount county.

I sure hope that's what it means.

It takes several years to see the the damage in population that shooting does, does in an area. Your not just killing that doe, your killing all her offspring for her lifetime. A place that has 30 does today, if you kill 5 has 25 to start next year, still alot of deer. It takes 3-5 yeareas till you realize, those five deer represented well over a hundred that would have been reproduced by those five. So I think what your seeing is the long term population effects of all the doe harvesting that has taken place. Just my opinion

I have a feeling its not…..That would mean that there was a major shift in hunter attitude toward killing does across north Alabama…..I just don’t really think that’s likely the case…..My guess is that its due to less deer……I’m calling it the corn crash. I think its impacting north Alabama more due to the habitat fragmentation and there being so many small parcels of land with a feeder on it.

I was just talking to a hunter last night that was saying how as long as they had corn out then they saw deer…..but if they let it run out then they disappeared quickly……We both agreed that it was because they were just going to the next corn pile across the road….Alabama hunters were given the rope to hang themselves with and that’s exactly what we’ve done in a lot of areas.

Poole may simply not hav the money to kill deer and take them to a processor.

Have you looked at any possible correlations between hunting licenses sold? After years of declines, 2020 was a huge spike that took license sales back up past 2011 levels, but it seems to have dropped off and is heading back towards where it was pre-pandemic. I have no real conclusions, but wondering how that plays into any that could be made.

The private I hunt in Blount county seems to have more does than ever. Me and some friends like to hunt refuges in Jackson county and we have noticed a decline the past couple years. My friend talked to farmer that owned land that joined some of the refuge and he said he had a permit and killed over 20 does out of his field this summer. Went from deer everywhere to shucks

Uhhhh..the vast majority of marshall county shouldnt even have a season…i hope people quit shooting deer period…for awhile…dadgum..i had two does an a fawn at my house comin to a corn pile..dang neighbors shot ever one of them an i aint seen a deer in 3 years..i hate this chit hole

May need to start going 1 buck 1 doe like in other states and additional bucks/does are an additional permit, with a small fee of course.
Geez that's actually pretty frustrating as if the public land in that area wasn't already tough enough to hunt.
Maybe they should just integrate the farm into the refuge and have a special opportunity hunt with more doe days in that block.

There is more deer around here than iv seen in years. Cant hardly drive down the road but I never hear any shots when im hunting

Doesn't seem to be as many people hunting in my area, or maybe less doe killing. I hardly hear a shot now, in years past I would hear two or 3 per afternoon hunt. Been this way for a couple of years. My cousin and I have not shot a doe for at least 3 years, his daughter killed two nice bucks. There are plenty of does, I always see 5 or 6 per afternoon, have seen as many as 17 plus some small bucks.

Thats awful

Yep, some counties have culture issues. Kill every damn thing that moves.

What areas are y'all hunting?

That's annoying. I never kill part of a mother/fawn pair. Try to go for lone does when I take one.

I hunt Pickens, Fayette, Lamar. We have plenty of does just don't shoot them. When my cousin was actively farming we would kill 12 - 15 a year and a couple of bucks. He is not farming any more but the deer are still there.

There’s no shortage of deer in Colbert or Lauderdale

People are just tired of messing with does. I’m one of them.

The problem is simple. You can only legally kill 3 bucks, one of which has to have 4 points on one side, and last year, you could kill a doe a day, and the season was 118 days.

No way you can manage a deer herd when you can kill 118 doe's and only 3 bucks per hunter.

Russell and macoon co

I have a hard time believing that to be the cause across 15-20 counties in north Alabama......especially over such a short time period....Are people in the southern counties just not tired of it?

I’m curious to see what lauderdale and Colbert final numbers are going to be.
I know they made it a lot more liberal towards shooting deer due to CWD, to try to create a dead zone/barrier, but I figured a vast majority of hunters won’t hunt that area like they used to, resulting in more deer than before.

I used to see only a handful of deer when driving 247 towards red bay, but this past year, it seemed to be crawling with deer til you got near the county line by the coon dog cemetery.

The slaughter fest that came through the black belt in the 2000’s has finally tapped the brakes. I’m happy to see it. Now if we can just get folks to start managing the pine plantations I believe we would start to see the hunting getting back to what it use to be. Don’t know if it will ever get there with the lack of ag throughout the area though.

There were 3 charity hunts around Montgomery area last Thur-Sun I know of that occurred.
. 200+ out of $tate hunters buying licenses and bait permits. and determined to shoot something... may cause a bump the doe kill once all those get into the total tally in those counties.
I for one wish we had a two week doe period again- and that would be it.

How do numbers compare to the pre-Covid years? 2018, 2019

This right here ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Only 3 bucks? Are you complaining that’s not enough?

In my part of the state that is how we have to manage our deer herd. Realizing that I'm an exception, I try to kill 4-5 does a year now that our population is in check and only 1 buck, 2 sometimes if the second one is really old. I try to get all my doe shooting done by January 1. Since I haven't had time to go but twice, I'm behind on shooting does so some that have been impregnated will have to be shot at the end of the season.

No 3 bucks plenty. A doe a day is stupid.! And get rid for the baiting!

I had a good population thru Aug but the numbers plummeted in Sept I think with the drought blue tongue prob got my herd.

I hope nobody in south Marshall county kills a doe for the next 15 years. I've had cell cams on corn piles since August and I have still, yet to have a fawn or yearling photo. Friggin coyotes and house dogs. We can't get a good population with a ultra low fawn recruitment rate.

The drought was severe in some areas. This stunted browse growth and making the browse less palatable for the deer. I guess some does could have had miscarriages. Nature has its own way of balancing things.

I hunted in a large club and we had deer but after recommendations we shot every doe just about we saw . Result .....the next few years it was hard to find one . That could be one of several reasons for less number this year in some of these places .

Lots of acorns and natural browse still in the woods, plots had a hard start with the drought. Most guys don’t want to drag a doe to the truck, shoot her in the green field or easy to get to places. That may have the doe numbers down, Or that’s my thought anyway.

You think it was cause y’all hurt the deer numbers that bad, or how much extra pressure you put on the place by killing more deer off of it, and they are harder to see now. Honest question

Sure isn’t any shortage on our place. We have does everywhere. And I like it that way.

Same thing in my part of Marion Co.

Yep. There’s no shortage in most north AL counties. People are also not reporting them. The new of Game Check has worn off, people don’t report their does like they do the first two bucks. Notice what I said there. 🙄

I think you gotta look at the pattern that’s occurring in the data and ask….”Why is it occurring in these particular counties but not others?”…..Its not just random or occurring the same across all counties….What’s the difference??……Your answer really needs to fit the pattern…..You cant just say that people arent reporting does now because that doesn’t fit….If that were the case it would be happening evenly across all counties…..Why is it happening in northern counties but not so much in the southern portion of the state? I’m saying it’s the hunter density, habitat fragmentation, and property sizes that’s causing baiting to impact some over others…..That fits the pattern

Also, when folks say there are “plenty” of deer or “no shortage”…..those are relative terms…….Plenty compared to what??.....That can vary a lot in the eye of the beholder…..Plenty compared to how many the land will actually support or plenty compared to what an individual hunter thinks is a bunch??.....To folks that don’t know any better, plenty may not be anywhere close to the actual potential

Eeeesh. I personally want to kill 10 bucks and only 2 does. That an issue?

Just wanting clarification on the posters wording. The way it’s worded would make someone think it’s a complaint on the 3 buck limit.

But since you ask that question, from a management standpoint on a statewide level, yes it’s an issue if every hunter had a 10 buck limit.

When you have deer trails that look like this criss crossing all over your property……that’s what “plenty” looks like to me....YMMV

Yeah I’m with you I was acting like a regular idiot that thought they should be able to just shoot all the bucks they wanted. Same page here.

Where I hunt (Private) in south alabama, it’s common to see 15-20 does in a field every afternoon. Guess it just depends on management plans and location.

When the deer started eating all the leaves off our peach trees they could reach late in the summer, that was plenty. Never seen them do that before a couple years ago. Peach leaves are not a desirable food source for deer, or wasnt till a couple years ago.

Hell there’s a lot of transgender deer being checked in that may be some of it.

Gotta have bucks to make baby deer just like you gotta have does to make baby deer.

I apologize, I guess I should have pre-declared that statement as sarcasm.

I apologize too, guess I should have asked " You serious Clark?"

I can actually kinda get on board with this. I have hunted in most areas of the State excluding SW AL. I have hunted in high hunter density with smaller land tracts and I have hunted in areas with only large tracts.

I'm gonna call it the corn crash as well I like that term. I have not looked at the data but I would expect areas with high hunter numbers and smaller land tracts to eventually begin to be impacted by hunting over corn. I would have expected that 3-5 years after corn implementation.

Anyone who thinks corn feeders don't make it easier to kill a deer buck or doe... is foolish. Be honest... y'all are not trophy hunting.

It will be really interesting to see if Alabama actually uses this Game Check data or if this really will just be a huge waste of time and money. What I would do is go by the numbers and if people aren't reporting their does then I would declare the population is down and put them on a doe days. Youi gotta send a message at some point or you will remain as irrelevant as you really are.

Heres how my hunting has changed in the last three years and it’s something to think about. Hogs have replaced deer in some of my freezer space.
I have pork breakfast sausage, pork specialty meats and pork cubes steak. Still have deer, but we haven’t killed as many does lately.
Just a FYI

I would also be interesting to see what the impact of Hogs really do have on all this. The DCNR knows where the areas are that are truly impacted by all these wild hogs. IMO there is sort of a "Hog Line". Lot of people have a few but it seems there is definitely a "front" like you would have in a military battle. I can draw a line in some areas and tell you that below this line there are more than "a few" there are literally so many you can't kill them all they just keep coming no matter how many you kill.

Exactly……what you would expect to happen would be for a pretty significant increase immediately following baiting being legalized followed by a crash 3-5 years afterwards…..then eventually your trend line stabilize at a new norm…..That’s exactly what’s happening. In simple terms your populations in these effected areas are going to be lower long term unless rules change or hunter attitude changes. After looking at what is occurring in places like Blount Co I don’t know how much implementing doe days will really help it…..They already have a pretty limited amount of time to shoot does and they’re going to see a 40% decrease this year. If we’re going to have a 3 buck limit then tags will have to be implemented too or it’s a useless rule…..Compliance right now is likely very low.

I think this is just the beginning of it and we’ll likely see further impacts over the next few years before we reach a new level of suck in the effected areas. I also think that they’ll be more areas impacted than just what we’re currently seeing….The concept that is playing out in North Alabama also occurs in other areas on a smaller scale.

I agree with what both of you are saying, but I think it has more to do with the extended doe season, then the corn. Weather anyone admits to it or not, people were hunting with corn way before it was legal. The baiting rule was so bs, 100 yards and out of sight, that no one went by it . The only time someone got a ticket for hunting over bait, was when gw was mad at them for something else or someone turned them in. And even then I don't believe it was enforced very much. When you kill a buck you kill one deer. When you kill a doe you kill not only her but all her off spring,AND here's the big one , the offspring her offspring would have produced. Just sit down with a pen and paper and draw a graph. Assume one doe would have twins and half those twins would be does having twins. That turns out to like 32 to 64 deer you take when you take one doe. Now I know that's not right because other factors influence that. But when someone shoots five does.........next year will be fine, five years down the road, not so much!

Growing up in the 60's and wanting to hunt, all we had in North Alabama were a few scattered deer. If you saw a deer track you called all your friends to come and see it. If you saw a deer, it was like laying eyes on Bigfoot! I grew up hearing hunters say that if you killed a doe, you was the lowest scum of the earth as they tried to increase deer numbers in North Alabama. In the 70's the deer population exploded and it got to where we were seeing deer almost everywhere. The 80's saw a spike in bowhunting and liberal doe limits because of the population numbers. I hunted the refuge here and saw deer on every hunt that I can remember. I don't think I ever climbed a tree and failed to see a deer.

There is a shift among all the folks I am close to now-they all want to kill a great deer and will not shoot a doe because it might mess up the area they are hunting. This is my thoughts as well. That doe might be in heat and bring a giant by me come the rut. I only kill one buck a year but I still enjoy being outside hunting but would kill another one if he was one I was going to mount. I have no desire to kill a doe and if you are on my property and kill a doe, you will never be back on it again-period! Killing does is what I like to see young hunters do, especially young girls who seem to now enjoy hunting more than the boys. When we have the youth hunt week, I have at least 10 students call or come by the office to tell me about what they shot. I love to hear these stories.

I am all about seeing deer, and I lose interest in an area if I am not seeing anything. I have no trouble letting deer walk, even good deer. I know my ideas are different than a lot of folks, but I could care less about someone telling me they killed 10 does this year. Tell me you killed a good one and show me his picture. Save the little ones for the little ones.

I think yotes have had a bigger impact on deer population decline than most hunters want to admit. We've always had a high deer density at our place, but saw a big drop in yearling sightings 3 years ago. However, after 3 years of trapping yotes we've seen a big increase in yearlings and does. In addition, our turkey population has exploded due to trapping coons and 2 controlled burns.

There have been way more bucks killed this year in our area from what I've seen and that's also what the local processors are saying. And out of these buck a lot of them are 3.5 plus years old. This may have something to do with it.

I have been thinking about this for a while. This season has been different. Deer were nocturnal early, and I blamed it on the hot weather making them feed at night. We also had a good acorn crop. I have looked at 1000s 0f pictures and not seen anything bigger than a 4 point. I sometimes think I am being out corned. Deer stopped showing up much in late Dec. I did see some cow horns pestering does around the feeders and I found 1 small scrape. I hunted a few times in Dec. and have not heard a shot, but it was warm. I am on 100 acres of pine plantation with a big creek and hard wood bottom surrounded by hunting clubs. There has been 3 does and 6 bucks killed in 10 years. 3 decent 8 points and 3 with pedicel damage. Two of us hunting on plots with a feeder and counting deer, we figure we have about 14 does and fawns using our property. I don' ever remember hunting this property a whole day and not seeing a deer until this year. I have been hunting this county since 1988 and today Jan.17th. I have seen more chasing and killed more bucks on this date than any other day of the season. I would love to be sitting in my ground blind on the creek today, but life gets in the way. Y'all go shoot a biggun...

More folks are going to have to take this ^^^^ same mentality to help balance things out…..I have no illusions about corn going away……there’s too much money involved in it from the sale of baiting license to the sale of the corn itself. Corn wars and trying to out bait the neighbor it would seem is just part of the game now. However, I think a lot of folks might want to reconsider how they approach their management plans in some of these more effected areas. We need there to be some properties where folks are pulling back the reigns in these more fragmented areas especially……realizing that there are plenty of folks around you to “manage” the population.

One thing I don't get is the people saying "hunter participation is down" etc... between land prices, access limitations, development, and public land usage, I'm all for fewer people hunting.

It can’t be down. This state is hunted to absolute death.

People aren't reporting

^^^^

Hunter Numbers "Down"

“We can’t keep going back to the same well,” Sykes said. “I go to the woods because I love the woods. We have people now getting interested in hunting who want a source of non-GMO, organic, free-range protein. They want to know where their meat is coming from. Is that your typical hunter? No.

“But our tried and true recruitment methods have just about reached their limits. We have to start thinking outside the box. We have to tap new groups.”



Woods are empty baws go home. We've got about 10 hunters per square mile and 30 deer per square mile.

Pennsylvania has got to be like a war zone

No what I am saying is it doesn't take much basic math to figure out what the issue is. A deer has, in rare cases, triplets. Most of the time its either twins or a single fawn. We know from the study in GA that if you don't control yotes, the recruitment rate for fawns is 55%.
That means if you kill a doe, you need 2 that survive and have twins, to basically replace the one you killed. It's just the odds and math. Chances are the 2 doe's will have a doe and a buck fawn each, if they have twins. The yotes will kill 2 of the 4. That means only 1 surivives, which replaced the one you shot last year.

You need 4 doe's to survive and all 4 to have twins, just to gain, and the math is you gain 1 doe. Kill yotes and the recruitment rate goes to the mid 80's. Then you can start gaining a little ground.

Take your normal timber co lease. I can't bait. I can't hinge cut. I can't burn. I can't have big green fields. When they cut (thin) tree's, they just randomly cut them. If they cut them in rows like a quail plantation, then you could bush hog on a 3 year rotation and create better cover. By the time I can deal with the skidder rows, the briars are too tall. My soil is 4.6-5.2 ph. It takes a lot of lime to get it productive. And a lime truck can't get in there, and I don't have a lime spreader, so its a by hand, or by pellet lime job. Then you have to wait a while for the PH to come up.

My lease is essentially 1.75 square miles. The density for my area is 30 to 60 deer per square mile. So on the low end, I have 52.5 deer. On the high end, which I am not even close to, I have 105. I have probably 12 different rack bucks on camera. Not counting spikes, and 3 or very small 4pts. That also wouldn't count this years button bucks. So out of 42.5 deer, how many do you think are 4 pts or less, and buttons, versus doe's? If its 3 to 1 in favor of doe's, then I basically have 22 bucks and 30 doe's. If 10 members kill 1 doe each. Now I have 20. Those 20 will only replace the 10 doe's killed, assuming all have twins. Unless I somehow manage, in my free time, to kill a bunch of yotes. That doesn't count car wrecks, poaching, disease, or poor crippling shots.

You can't hold a person to 3 bucks, and essentially unlimted doe's and grow the population on a statewide level. There are pockets you can kill more doe's with no negative impact, but... not where I am. Since the laws don't look like they are changing, we have to change on our leases to help stabilize and regrow the population. And that's the direction we went on mine.

It dang sure is

Found a bunch of dead heads here in Jefferson County this year. Wonder if we had some EHD or blue tongue this year?

Absolutely. It's not the corn. It's simply ridiculous to allow everyone to kill a doe a day all season long. I know that no one will actually kill that many but it is still allowing an absolute slaughter of does. Out of state hunters flock to places like Illinois hoping to kill one monster buck. They flock to Alabama packing seven 150qt igloo coolers or a deep freezer to haul the mega meat harvest back. If you have a big enough track of land you can control your deer numbers by exercising a little more restraint. But for people hunting smaller parcels all it takes is one neighbor fully on the "If it's brown it's down" train and you are going to see a drop in deer numbers eventually. Most of Alabama doesn't have the agriculture anymore to sustain deer numbers in the face of this kind of slaughter. Also most of the acorn producing trees have been mowed down and replaced by hybrid pine trees. Pine plantations don't have much nutritional value for deer. Deer numbers are definitely down in my neck of the woods.

Zone C is the most impacted area despite having pretty limited doe days......Its the corn

It’s not the corn. On our lease we could literally kill a doe everyday easy. We don’t shoot does. It’s a choice. If you want to see deer when you hunt don’t kill does!! It ain’t rocket science.

Friend of mine and I were talking about this the other day. He brought up a good point, hunting pressure is high and more deer are getting kilt due to the fact that a pound of Hamburger is $10.00 dollars. Poor folks can't afford to buy meat from Walmarks so they are feeding their family with deer. Make sense to me. Democrats ruin everything.

This is per year

$1500 in club dues
$1000 in groceries and gas
$300 to process 3 deer per year.

$2800 per year for roughly 100lbs of meat in return. $28 lb sounds costly. But I do it every year. 🤷🏻‍♂️😁😁

And that’s not even counting everything else that goes in with it. Just bare essentials, now I’m not fussing about it cause I choose to do it and I enjoy deer camp and everything that goes along with it. But folks ain’t out here deer hunting cause it’s cheaper than beef at the piggly wiggly.

000 Buck you think poor folks that want to feed their family are playing by the rules? That kind of deer hunting is rich man's hunting.

People are still not reporting their harvests imo.
I hear shots almost every time I go hunting. It starts during bow season too.
Been a good year for us though. Thankfully.
Could easily have been one of our best.

IMO this is closer to how the math would play out for someone who lives in the country and is actually hunting for the meat.

I can speak for parts of Franklin, Winston and Marion. As many or more deer than ever in the tracts I’m familiar with there.

On one 600-acre tract where there’s only a few weeks of doe season, we’ve killed 6 doe and still seeing 20 on a heavy day.

There was an abundance of acorns this year compared to last year and the drought wrecked greenfields in NW Alabama.

Acorns combined with little to no greenfields equals less deer killing for the average Joe.

Also it seems like now that there are more deer and it’s zero challenge to killer a doe, less folks are interested in killing does. Everyone is waiting on that 2-3yr old 8pt to daylight on the cell cam at the feeder.

15 years ago when deer weren’t nearly as abundant. I would hear 10-15 shots on opening day of season (also opening day of doe season). Nowadays I’ll see 20 deer on opening day and might hear 2 shots.

The deer are still here, folks just not interested in nanny whacking anymore.

Its the corn........

I have a different question. Right now, would you agree turkey hen's are plentiful compared to Tom's?

What would happen if we kept the Tom limit where it is, but said you could kill a hen a day during turkey season? And then what would happen if in 5 years, we changed the rules and allowed you to bait for turkeys?

Would the drop in hen kill's in year 6 be because of bait, or would it be becuase people killed a ton of them in the first 5 years of the hen a day limit?

We can't even legally kill a hen, and they have way more offspring that a doe does.

Doe days ended 25 years ago dude.......We've had liberal doe limits for a long time.......Those liberal doe limits whacked populations down to a new norm years ago compared to what we had in the 90's and early 2000's.......

Might be where you hunt, but it's not in the southwest blackbelt. Years of unlimited doe harvest, state working off of bad numbers from a really bad reporting system with virtually zero enforcement, years of GW under-staffing and thus lax enforcement, covid putting huge numbers of people in the woods, and high inflation have not done the state's deer herd any favors. The sky is not falling and corn is not the root of all evil ( I wish they never legalized it and enforced the hell out of the old zero tolerance baiting policy but they didnt and that horse is long gone and out of the barn). Here's the truth of the matter: Harvest numbers are in all probability, just returning to what they historically were before Covid, now that everyone is being forced to go back to work and arent working from home all week, every week. From the 40 page AF&G annual deer report: Deer killed in 2017-18: 212,000 Deer killed in 2018-19: 203,000 Deer killed in 2019-20: 218,000 Deer killed in 2020-21: 272,000 Deer killed in 2021-22 301,000 Deer killed in 2022-23: 308,000

The 2022-2023 season was really when the last of the COVID work from home holiday ended. You'll see the 23-24 numbers drop by probably 30% as a result of the end of Covid and most big companies requiring their employees to actually work at the office. Man days hunted this year will be substantially less than in the previous 3 years. Harvest is probably up just a shade from the pre-covid years because legalized corn has made it easier to just shoot one out your back door. Half the state was hunting over corn anyway but now they dont have to hide it and can use piles visible from satellite. The other reason for the coming drop in 23-24 is the fact that the harvest jumped up so much from the historical harvest numbers during the covid seasons. Harvest had remained and was pretty much stabilized at around 210,000 animals per year and the herd was pretty much stabilized to that level of harvest. Whenever you shoot a herd as hard as it was shot up from 2020 to 2023, and take out 25-30% more animals three years in a row, there simply are not as many deer available to kill in the 2023-2024 season. That's your drop and it's a combination of factors, #1 Covid, #2 inflation, and lastly and playing a minor part is corn making it easier to see and kill deer. I'd expect the deer harvest this year (adjusted up for Corn and inflation and down for most of the work from home ending, bumper acorn crop, and excessive harvest during covid years) to probably be around 200,000 to 215,000 animals for this year. It's just a SWAG but it'll probably be pretty close.

Covid didnt cause a three year spike in kill numbers......its the corn and what we are now starting to see in some areas is the beginning of "The Corn Crash"

We are over run with does at the two places I hunt. One is in north Marengo and the other is close to
The river in Clarke county..

Way more does than in recent years in Wilcox, Dallas, Clarke and Marengo. No corn crash happening anywhere that I or my buddies hunt.

Similar in Sumter Co. Maybe not “way more” but certainly not less, and most probably an increase in numbers.

CNC, I think you posted before that you dont have a 9-5 corporate type job, but the additional time available for most people that work full-time M-F jobs, to be in the woods during that 3 yr period was exponentially higher than you realize. I had to quarantine, due to exposure, 4 times in that 3 yr period. Since I did not have to go in to the office, I took my laptop got in the truck and spent the majority of those 40 days quarantining at the camp hunting. On a good year, I might hunt 12-15 days of the season. I still hunted my normal amount on weekends and vacation days but with the quarantine stuff thrown in too, I probably averaged 25-30 days hunting each of those years and hunted as much or more on just "covid quarantine vacation" than I would have in 2-3 yrs of regular season. Now I didnt go shoot a bunch of deer because we trophy hunt, and I'm not the typical alabama hunter that feels he needs to kill a deer every time he goes in the woods. If I was a different type of hunter, I could have seriously hurt the population on the land we hunt and corn would not have been the reason. Trust me when I say, Covid and businesses being closed, 20 days to slow the spread, etc had a much much larger impact in increasing those kill numbers than corn did. The crash about which you speak is the all the additional deer that were killed as a result of everyone having the opportunity to spend WAY more time in the woods.

Run a poll on here and lets see who on this site hunted a significantly, higher than normal, number of days during the covid years. My days that I was able to be in the woods was almost exactly double and I could have killed at least one deer everytime I hunted and could have killed both does and bucks, almost every sit, had I been inclined to do so. I also think that the majority of people had similar situations and were also able to hunt much more during the pandemic.

You can’t compare turkeys and deer from a reproductive standpoint. Not even close.

Well I believe if you used some reading comprehension skills and go back and look......you'll see that I never said it was happening everywhere in the state. I said that most of the impacted counties were in north Alabama

Well now, that just makes too much sense. It can’t be that, it’s got to be the corn.

CNC isn’t a fan of Occam’s Razor.

Were people struggling to kill does before corn was legalized?

Blaming corn for a decline in deer population is the equivalent of blaming a gun when there is a active shooter situation. It is a factor but not the source of the problem. If there is a decline in the deer population due to hunters it is the lack of trigger restraint.

I know a lot of hunters. A lot. And I don’t know anyone who kills a bunch of does/deer. Now I know some people that used to. Back in the 90s I knew a lot of people that did. I did. But it seems like now everyone I know or meet are trophy hunting. And shooting does is too much work. If they do it’s out of what they believe is a necessity and it’s 1-2 a year. I know we always talk about the “typical Alabama hunter” but I think that has changed the last 25 years. Y’all don’t think so?

Oh, I get it. Corn only works and gets more deer killed in the north Alabama counties. There arent any meth heads, black or redneck trash, shooting deer under lights off corn piles off the back of their porches down in the black belt. No small property owners or 1/4 acre trailer lots anywhere down that way. Nobody has any 2-10 acre parcels in Wilcox and Dallas counties that butt up to large well managed clubs where they can put a corn pile and bait deer off the big land owners and onto their postage stamp property. And we know for sure that nobody from the big population areas of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa drive south every weekend to hunt deer over corn in these same counties either. Yep, now I got it, you're right, it's definitely the corn.

Just had a guy call me from Tuskegee wanting me to track a deer he shot in town in his uncles back yard over a corn pile......I declined. That's how more deer get killed. Waaay more of that happening in north alabama due to the habitat fragmentation and higher hunter density across much larger areas. If you're not able to comprehend it then I cant explain any better to you

Occam's Razor would actually support it being the corn.......Baiting legalized......kills immediately go up.....

I get it…..some folks have a vested interest in convincing everyone that corn is having an impact…..Still doesn’t make it true though

What is happening with deer harvest numbers in Mobile, Baldwin, Tuscaloosa & Shelby counties? Doesnt get much more fragmented than those. Are they experiencing the "corn crash" too? If you cant open your eyes and see what is right in front of your face, I cant explain it any better to you. Sometimes you have to take a step back and look at the big picture and not get fixated on just one thing when there are multiple issues at play. Corn definitely has played a contributing part, I'm sure, but it's not the root cause of the problem. We wouldnt have an issue to even talk about, if AL didnt have a 118 day season and allow virtually unlimited doe harvest for all 118 days. That's the real root cause of the problem. We are going to settle back into that same 200K-220K range of chuckie checked deer a season, just like we were running pre-covid.

When was baiting legalized?

I've been posting maps showing the numbers....Check out "Fun with Numbers"

Seems like you would know that information before having an opinion on it

I'm going to make it really simple and show you the exact effect corn has had. Baiting was legalized in the summer of 2019. So the 2019-20 season was the first season of "Cornfest" and everyone went wild with corn. Here are the harvest numbers:
2017-18: 212,000 Deer killed in 2018-19: 203,000 Deer killed in 2019-20: 218,000

The year that corn was legalized, the total reported deer harvest increased by a whopping 15,000 animals over the previous year and just 6,000 over the year before that. Legalizing corn had a very nominal effect. Now what happened in the spring of 2020? I'll answer for you, Covid. So the 2020-2021 season was the first season when people were getting stimulus checks, being paid to stay home from work, having to quarantine for 10 days if you were exposed to a positive person, and business pretty much went mostly remote. Guess what, when everyone was at home or working from the camp and could double or triple their time in the woods, deer harvest increased. Imagine that. What else happened in 2020? Hmmm as Skinny says....yep, Chuckies new rule goes into effect and it is the first year that you have to have a harvest ID number to drop a deer off at the processor or taxidermist. Let's see, I bet a whole bunch of people that were saying FU to Chuckie Check decided they needed to get the app, participate and actually start report their kills. You think that might have led to a higher number of deer being reported as being killed in the 2020-2021 season and beyond? In order for your ridiculous theory of "all the deer were and are being killed now strictly because corn is legal", it would have to mean that the first year that it was legalized, nobody took advantage of being able to hunt over corn, or, more plausibly, it probably just took the deer a couple years to find all the corn piles and get shot over them. As your buddy Biden would say C'mon man.

My nephew... a dam .243 hunter mind you.... When he was 17-18 years old he couldn't kill a deer to save his life his dumbass would be back at the house within an hour saying he ain't seen nothing, blah, blah. Unless I put him directly on the "X" and put enough peer pressure on him to at least wait long enough to have to take a leak or something.... he wasn't killing a dern thing.

Well - then I put a feeder out.

He goes out there about 30 minutes before the feeder goes off and pretty soon... there's the deer.

if there is a problem with the feeder he won't hunt there. He went out there once this season and the feeder didn't go off. He texted me within 1 minute of when it didn't go off asking me why it didn't go off. So far he hasn't been back to that particular stand all season, I guess he's scared he might have to sit there and wait on a deer to appear.

I agree on pretty much all the rest of it the long seasons and lack of trigger control, etc. .... BUT - I'm sorry.... but I don't think you can discount this....

Yeah. Most people are paying about 1,000 dollars per pound.

The numbers dont lie. 15,000 kill increase, one year without corn, one year with. No other external factors other than weather. After that first year, way to many other variables introduced into the equation between the reg changes, soaring inflation, covid etc. I can tell you one thing for certain, a large portion of the reported harvest increase was due to people actually be forced to participate in Chuckies little program, as a result of the processor and taxidermist requiring a harvest number. Before the 20-21 season, all those deer were not being reported and participation was probably only 1/3 of what Chuckie said/thought it was. Once they were forced (due to the inconvenience of having to clean their own deer or not get one mounted) to report properly, the harvest numbers immediately jumped up by 30% and to closer to what they had been running for years. Like I've said before, Chuckie and the cab have been making game management decisions on the state's deer herd, based purely on BS/worthless numbers and had no real clue how many deer we have, how many we had or how many are actually being killed. Just facts. One year without corn, one year immediately after with corn. Other external factors not playing into the equation. 7% harvest increase. Probably from kids like your nephew.

This man gets it ^^^^

The number of baiting privilege permits sold this year is nearly three times what it was in year one…….Look it up.

Just because the number of permits are up doesn't mean the number of people baiting are up! Has nothing to do with corn , everything to do with extended doe season!

I get that you’re just trolling but here’s the problem with that line of thinking……Looking at zone c it would appear that limiting doe days probably wont fix the issue…..So we could go in and limit everyone on doe days and it do absolutely nothing to change things…..The problem is that now there are more properties will the ability to influence harvest rates…..That kid in Tuskegee can now legally shoot 2 or 3 or even 10 out of his uncles back yard on a 2 acre lot

I had another situation this year where a guy hunting 20 acres called me to track a deer he shot over his feeder…..The deer ran across the county road onto his neighbors place…He knew the neighbors so we had permission to keep tracking it……When we got over there the neighbor had a feeder set up as well not 300 yards from the hunter’s feeder…..Well, about 3 weeks later I get another call from the hunter’s OTHER neighbor across the creek on the same side of the road. He had yet another feeder he was hunting over not 300 yards from the first one in the other direction…..So you had 3 different hunters killing deer off of feeders within about 700-800 yard circle.

Corn has really increased the ability for small properties to influence harvest rates

I understand your way of thinking but it's the same deer that went to all the feeders. So if there are three feeders within a square of you pick the distance. The same deer are going to the all the feeders or corn piles. If you out law corn the same deer will be going to all three food plots. Someone is going to kill that deer. Make it legal to keep the corn and illegal to shoot the deer and 2 of the three won't shoot the deer . Improving the deer chances of surviving by 66%

There weren’t any food plots…….This was all just feeders set up in the woods on small parcels of land…..You’re right that the same deer are going to visit the feeders and three different people have the option to shoot them……All it takes is one to pull the trigger…..That’s how its happening.

Yes so the solution is not how you get them there, it's if your allowed to shoot them or not. If they weren't allowed to put corn out they would have a food plot. Not trying to troll, just my opinion the dang season is too long and the limits are too much! No one needs ten deer a year, and there's too many people that think if the government says it's OK to do it , it is. Again just my opinion

Let me try to explain it one more time……There wasn’t anywhere for a food plot to exist……it was in the middle of the woods on a 20 acre parcel where someone would have had a hard time killing deer otherwise……Being able to draw them into a feeder though gives each one of these hunters the ability to shoot deer and “fill the freezer” at will now on places where they likely would not have been able to before…..The same as the kid shooting deer in his uncles back yard…..These situations are happening all over the state……Some areas they are happening way more than others due to the average property sizes and hunter densities and that’s why you have some counties more heavily affected.....such as Blount and Marshall just to name a couple

Whats the number of doe harvest for each county since they went to a doe a day. Take the increase in that vs the number of doe increase since they allowed you to hunt over corn? That will give you the correct answer on the deer population decrease, without any dispute since it the does that control the population. Idk the answer to that question but I would bet the number of doe kills went up way more the year after they went to a doe a day, then when they went to allowing baiting!

And that same 20 acre property owner, with nothing to draw deer to it, most likely had a corn pile on it years before baiting was legalized. It’s been happening all over the state since the 70s. You just didn’t get a call to track on those types of properties because at the time, it was Illegal.

Thank you!!

It amazes me the love that some have for corn. I guess it’s the easy way and it’s just the norm now. There are more deer killed now due to the usage of corn. The season has always been long and the deer heard used to be fairly healthy. The biggest difference I see is we used to only get a week to kill a doe. Now you get all season to throw out your corn and kill as many as you want. Ban corn. Make hunters have to actually hunt. By doing this we will lose hunters which will help the deer herd. There’s too many hunters now anyway.

And I use the term hunters loosely. We have a lot of shooters who sit over a feeder

Most likely? Doubtful. I’ve been hunting a long time. Yes there has always been some who used corn but it wasn’t in any way close to the amount being thrown out today. Ban corn.

This ^^^......The corn pile density is probably 100 times what it once was or more.....That is such a duh kinda thing that it makes me wonder if abolt has some kind of hidden agenda here. I just cant fathom how someone cant see that

Those are facts I agree with CNC. It’s happening at an alarming rate. Now everyone with a half acre, a corn pile and time can kill as many deer as the guy with 10000 acres of heavily managed property. Used to those folks didn’t kill much.

I not a lover of corn, im.just saying exactly what you you said, THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE IS....we used to have a week to kill does and now we have 6 months......there's you BIGGEST problem!

I’ll just throw this out there, and it’s THE primary reason I no longer work for the DCNR. I fought it hard then and I’m going to continue to do so, but the additive mortality of the Feb extension in areas it’s not needed, with legalized baiting and technological advances in deer detection is an absolute disaster and will impact population dynamics for a long time.

Folks 2 miles from me have killed 27 does so far and not a single buck. They own a major drug chain

I know people who would not have killed deer, if it weren't for the aid of cell cams, so I agree it is an issue, but it's an age class and and quality issue. The population issue is because of the liberal doe harvest we have. That's just my opinion and I'm no expert.

I have seen an increase in population on my property (350 acres) by not shooting does. I have also seen an Increase in age class by not shooting young bucks. The population increase has way surpassed the big buck increase. That's just my observation.

I've often wondered why the recommendation hasn't been pitched to suspend doe harvest during and after the rut? Once the does are bred, looks like it would be a smart idea to keep them alive to keep from losing 2 or 3 deer per trigger pull. I realize it wouldn't work in extreme south AL that experiences the Feb rut, but for all other zones, it would have to have a positive recruitment effect.

No agenda. I’ve run clubs and held big leases since the early 90s in multiple counties. Washington, Covington, Choctaw, Marengo, Wilcox, Clarke, Dallas. Smallest was around 800 acres, most 2000-3000 acres. When you control big pieces of property, you touch a lot of smaller surrounding properties. All were low membership and high member/acreage ratios, so it was a fairly controlled group of guys. Rare was the year that we didn’t kill multiple deer, on our managed, non-baited property, that showed up at our skinning shed full of corn. I’ve helped game wardens make a bunch of baiting cases over the years. Call it in and report it, show the GW where you think it is occurring and then let them access across my property to bust the neighbors baiting their smaller inferior property just across the line, who mistakenly thought the GW would have to come in off the highway, or by their house, the same way they were coming in. Lot more of it going on than people would think. If you didn’t control a big piece that touched a bunch of other parcels, you’d never know. Happened enough that I lost all faith in people actually following any of the game laws in this state. I’m sure others have similar experiences.

Only difference now is that they can pour out a truckload and don’t have to hide while doing it and hunting over it. The tonnage of corn is definitely more because they no longer have to be discreet about it. They were doing it plenty back then too but it was 5-50lbs at a time, not 500. But it still pulled deer and they still shot everything that showed up at the pile.

And cameras.

Neighbor owns a small strip behind me. They put out tons of corn

common scene they dont have . good luck

hell im just a ole county boy that didnt finish the 10th grade and knew better . they've began to worry more about satisfying hunters than herd management .

how to take a screen shot

Ban greenfields too. And shooting houses. And scopes. And cover scents. Long Johns. Four wheelers. The new knives with the replacement blades that are so sharp. Oh and ban Sitka gear too.

People in other states have been hunting over bait for years. People in Alabama have been hunting over bait for years. Deer will be fine.

I hear what you’re saying but cuz……..”multiple deer” is a whole lot different than ALL deer……I know what is going on, I go out in the woods and see it everyday on property after property after property……Probably like 95% of places have corn piles and feeders everywhere now. Its not just a little bit anymore…..We’re on a whole different wavelength than we used to be……It isnt just those few guys who border up to some big hunting club these days……Its virtually EVERY HUNTER……and in WAYYYY more places where its being poured out and deer being killed……..

and rifle season is too long

You have an equation where there’s “deer produced” and “deer killed”……..There comes a point when you have to decide how we want to balance that equation and all of those variables add up and matter. Its pretty retarded just to make assumptions that “deer will be just fine” and we can do anything we want when we have the ability to understand math and understand that equation…..There comes a point where we have to adapt or go in the hole. It ludicrous and naive to even begin to act like legalized baiting hasn’t impacted the equation.

It’s not just baiting. Smaller places feed off of bigger well managed clubs


We had a pasture on our NE aside and guys had always shot what ever they wanted and how many they wanted. When we came along they started wearing out those 2.5 yr old 8s. Bragged about how many there were killing.

We also had guys bragging that they’d sneak on our club and hunt. It was like an in your face challenge when we showed up. What was funny they’re all gone but that club is still rocking along.

This is intelligent and I believe this. Truth is in my land, we just don’t shoot many deer. We have tons of deer! Tons of bucks! We only like shooting big mature whitetails. Now having said that, I like shooting deer, always have! But because my most valuable asset is time, I tend to not shoot does because I become very focused on shooting certain bucks we have pictures of. If I shoot a doe, my hunt is over.

We spend a ton of money on corn in the fall and triple grip in other parts of the year. Many of my feeders, I will have 12-15 does trying to eat on all times of the day. But that is the right thing to do! Right!!?? I feel that if I am going to take resources off the land, I need to provide for the rest of the resources! Habitat improvement, feeding, minerals, and keeping poachers away is something I can do. It is the evolution of a deer hunter. Once again, I love shooting big bucks but I also love the management of the land and the animals! It’s the whole process that I enjoy. Same goes for the guys I hunt with. By doing things this way, we should never have problems with deer numbers.

None of this matters if you don’t have self control and trigger control. End of story!

It could but it could also support that increased Hunter presence during Covid accounted for the increase, now decrease in harvest numbers. Regardless of which is applicable now, you’ usually don’t side with the most simple answer being correct.

I’ve been feeding corn, free choice, for 2 seasons now. I have killed exactly zero deer on the property. I won’t shoot a doe. I won’t shoot a immature buck. I’m not feeding corn to kill deer. I’m feeding corn to keep them from being killed. I probably have one of the best looking food plots in Marshall county. I do it to try and increase the deer population, not to kill deer. I run multiple cell cams to monitor deer and potential trespassing issues.

Not everyone who has a corn pile on small acreage kills all the deer, some of try to improve the herd.

I feed literally a ton a week year around. I've killed one deer in the last two years. It's not the corn killing them buddy! And feeding was never banned in alabma, it was only baiting if it wasn't 100 yards away from your stand and out of sight! Go back to a few.doe.days a year and leave the three buck limit and the population will get better.

The problem is not the corn. It is the general mentality of the majority of hunters in this state. Kill kill kill. “I’m a big man because I limited out on bucks every year for the past 10 years. Or I killed 19 deer last year see how much of a great hunter I am.” Corn will definitely cause a deer to move through or go onto a small inferior property, but that doesn’t mean that deer has to die. That decision falls to the man behind the gun or bow. Alabama’s problems, herd decline or growth, nocturnal deer due to over pressure, piss poor age structure due to over harvest of young, immature bucks, etc is all 100% due to the hunters in this state and their complete lack of trigger control. Thank goodness there are still a bunch of us that manage deer and have big properties all over the state that can somewhat protect the deer and act as nurseries. If we hunted like some of my neighbors, there wouldn’t be a deer left in our area. Now that it’s legal, we feed corn and beans, not to kill deer over it but to try to keep them from roaming onto to other properties and getting shot.

Alabama’s DAs running things don’t help one bit either. They make decisions not based on herd management and health. They are now political decisions based on $$$. Kill a doe a day is stupid. You can hunt over corn if you pay for a license to break the law is really stupid. Extending the season in areas where the rut is well over, is stupid. And this is going to offend some on here that hunt almost everyday of the season, but having a deer season that runs for 118 days, with 102 of those days being rifle season, is dumb as hell and stupid too.

Sitting here watching 8 does and cams showing at least 7 others in another plot. Doe numbers here in Conecuh county pretty strong between the 2 properties I hunt and talking with a few others who hunt in the same areas.

Lot of truth here. Sure, corn and cell cameras are cheat codes.

So is the guy feeding a ton of food per week, or the guy with equipment to plant acres of food plots. All are done to attract deer, improve habitat (grow deer) so that we can harvest deer.

If we all used common sense this could solve itself. Since we can’t, I am in the boat that the season is too long.

Call cameras and corn are only as detrimental as the hunter. Some people use them to improve their deer population, as already mentioned. Some don't. The doe jihadist would do what they do regardless of the current tech or regulations regarding baiting. It's always been that way.

Supplemental feeding of any type changes the carrying capacity of the land and pulls deer from your neighbors that have poor land or don't feed. Then folks see all these deer using their land and think they are overpopulated and need to kill some. If I am at the end of the season and I haven't killed a buck I will shoot a young doe for meat, not for population control. Two big clubs that I pass on the way to my place have a 4-point minimum. And for some people the season never closes. This doesn't help either IOM.

Absolute cold hard truth. And most people would only have about 2 days off from work to hunt that 1-week doe season. So, at best most folks could probably kill 2 does. Now you can start killing a doe a day in October. And you can keep on killing a doe per day through November, December, January, and 10 days into February. That's 118 days. And yeah, I know most people won't have all 118 of those days off to hunt either. But that span includes about 16 weekends of wide open doe season that most people do have off. Anyone who thinks corn has made more of an impact on deer numbers than expanding the doe season from 7 days to 118 days is living proof of the old saying, "common sense isn't too common".

Not with a rifle season from Nov 18 to Feb 10 and a doe a day stupidity!

Yep. If someone is dumb enough to kill every deer on their property then laws won’t change that.

Unfortunately if that dumbass is your neighbor you are screwed. That's what nobody wants to discuss. We all share deer with our neighbor and when we talk about people giving up hunting or not having a good experience this can be part of that. Especially if you own your land and can't just easily move on to another spot. Go out there work your tail off and improve your property for your neighbor to just have more young bucks to kill. 100% that is reality.

I agree with just about everyone.... Corn doesn't kill deer.... people with itchy trigger fingers kill deer.

Baiting doesn't impact other States like it does Alabama... Why? We are the most lax State in the entire country with our rules that's why. No other State operates like we do. I am not suggesting anything just pointing that out.

Dead on the money. Corn, cell cameras, and extra long season dont mix especially in areas with lots of small properties where everyone is competing. I personally know multiple people that are waiting for there camera to go off in their back yard to slip out the back door and knock another one down. Over time this will decimate the herd in these areas and it wont take long.

Here's an updated doe map as of today showing this year's harvest compared to last.....Covid must have really done a number on those northern counties abolt......

Alabama may eventually need to do something like the below - New Jersey. NJ closely monitors the herd in different parts of the state and adjust tags annually accordingly.

Some areas 1 doe. Others unlimited.

NJ Archery Seasons and Bag Limits
NJ Hunting Zone Map

I guess all those heavily populated, fragmented counties in central the south end of the state must not be hunting or putting corn out. Nobody lives in Bibb, Shelby, Chilton, Tuscaloosa, Mobile, Baldwin, Escambia, Covington and Geneva counties. No fragmented properties in those counties. Those are all made up exclusively of nothing but big 10,000-40,0000 acre private tracts all over those counties right? Yet they are all pretty much on target to be pretty much right in line with last years harvest, once you figure when the rut starts and all those guys are just now about to start hitting the woods in force and hunting hard from now til the end. But you're right CNC, EVERYTHING that happens now, in the deer woods, is now the direct result of CORN!!!!!! Say it slowly with me, IT IS A PEOPLE & GAME MANAGEMENT PROBLEM. LOL

You also gotta take into account average property size and hunter density…….as well as the fact that this is just the beginning…..Like Goatkiller said, you expect the impacts to happen in the 3-5 year time frame…..North Alabama is just seeing the first of the impacts……

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/alabama/counties

Attached Link above is to a color coded map of population, by county, in AL. According to your theory, counties of the same color should be seeing the same, or at least somewhat similar harvest trends, if fragmented properties and corn are really the route cause of all issues. At a quick first glance comparison, it doesn't appear that that is the case. Overlay the two maps and see what it looks like.

So how does population density for a county like say Jackson relate to hunter density??

I cant find anything regarding licensed hunters by county. Roughly 10% of Alabama residents have hunting licenses according to what I can find. A safe assumption is that that 10% is somewhat evenly distributed among the population and across huntable property. Sure it will vary by locale, but you cant just arbitrarily say that more people hunt in Jackson county than do in Mobile county.

Marengo, Dallas, Clarke, and Wilcox counties have low populations and larger tracts but what you have to take into account is that half of Pensacola, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and half of Mobile and Baldwin counties, along with a pile of Louisiana coon asses are driving to those counties to hunt every week. The actual hunter density in those counties when you add in all the transient hunters coming and going, to the existing resident landowners that hunt, is way higher than you are giving credit for looking only at individual property ownership.

Example: You've got a fragmented area in Jackson County. You have one landowner with 500 acres and 12 individual landowners with 2-40 acres each, totaling another 250 acres, and all hunt. So you have 13 people hunting that 750 acres in Jackson county. In Marengo county, you have one privately owned 750 acre tract. It is leased to a hunting club with 10-12 members. If the landowner and his son hunt the backyard around his house, you have 12-14 people hunting the 750 acres in Marengo too.

We don’t kill THAT many deer based on how many we have on our property, BUT multiply that times all the folks killing them around me and it does add up. If there’s any limits to be made, it’s gotta be acreage based. No other way to manage it. People/biologists talk about deer per acre with management.
And tags have to be implemented, and fined heavily or it’s basically voluntary.

If does are restricted, it will be tags per license based - i.e. # does per season.

I can already guarantee you it won't be acreage based. They wouldn't hand out extra does to a guy because he has 200 acres or whatever number.

A guy with 200 acres doesnt need any extra does period. It should definitely be acreage based. You got 2-20 acres, your max is 1 deer period. You got 2000 acres, XX does and XX bucks. You got 20,000 acres XXX does and XXX bucks. The real problem is the 2 acre guys with a corn pile out the back door with a light over it, killing any deer, day or night, that sticks his or her head out. It's what the problem has always been in Alabama, for as long as I have hunted.

People need to realize that if they want to own deer, they need a high fence. Owning a bunch of land gives someone just that... a bunch of land. That may allow the landowner more/better opportunities to harvest deer, but Alabama is never going to allocate deer based on acreage owned because owning land doesn't mean you own deer. Just not gonna happen unless you're a for profit farmer losing crops to deer.

I'd personally be happy to have an antler restriction on bucks + one doe per license. Areas with high doe pop, the state gives out DMPs for extra does to be harvested in those zones.

Honest question. How many of you are seeing less does on your lease / hunting ground / property than you did 3 years ago ?

I'm seeing way more, and I'm in northeast Alabama in an area that gets hunted hard.

They certainly used to hand out more doe permits to areas with large acreage and large populations.
Back when it was 5 days only.

You're saying a landowner would report his land ownership while buying a license and state "I have 2,000 acres so I deserve 10 doe permits"? So two hunters living next door to each other had different numbers of doe permits based on their personal acreage?

I have no doubt different areas would have different amounts of doe permits based on population dynamics.

Our doe tags were based on deer weights and jaw bones we sent to Montgomery.

No, you had to get a county biologist to come out to your land (with you) and they’d come up with a management plan.
It generally included doe permits beyond what the general public had. Try doing that on a house lot. See the difference.
Back then every county had a wildlife guy, I doubt they do now.

Lots of states issue permits based on population, different amout of does allowed to be killed by county or area. Alabama is a eff it state kill em all. State is not managing anything but money. And to cncs point wich would grow the population faster.
#1- no more baiting, cameras, or food plots, but you can kill a doe a day every day. Or....

#2- only 10 does are allowed to be killed in each county a year, doesn't matter how you do it, bait cameras, even night hunt them?


I'm not saying this is what I want, or what it should be, just that the low numbers are do to over harvest, you fix that by under harvesting , not by changing how you harvest!
Seems like this comes up about every six months, but it's simple, want more deer stop shooting them.

We've probably got double or almost triple the number of does that we had 4-5 yrs ago but it is by design. We control a lot of acreage, and we made the decision that the herd was well below carrying capacity, as a result of previous harvest strategies on both ours and surrounding properties, and we wanted to increase our deer density, so we simply have not shot them. At all. We've got a couple small piece neighbors that are shooting plenty does and small bucks too. They shoot enough for the entire area, so we simply dont shoot any does on ours.

No. The state had what was referred to as the DMAP Deer Management Assistance Program. Additional tags were issued on a property specific basis. Did away with it when they went to the "shoot all the does you want for the entire season" rule.

My numbers are up. Had mbrock come down and look at my place he said we weren't near capacity. Haven't shot a doe in 4 years, shot one 10 point this year, only buck in last three. Got the neighbor on board last year. Numbers moving up, age class moving up. I have 350 acres neighbor has about 300, my other neighbors may be stacking them up I really don't know. I don't think so though. But not shooting them has made a huge difference for me

Ah very interesting so it wasn't based on acreage it was a customized program specific to the parcel with biologist oversight - were these for controlling doe overpopulation?

I've hunted a bunch of states that more closely manage their does/seasons than Alabama - NJ, NY, CT, PA and usually with DMAPs biologist has to come out and make a determination that the deer are overpopulated and in bad shape and/or causing ecological damage.

I live in zone C. I hunt the land I live on there some. Seeing deer is not a problem we have plenty but we’ve killed 1 buck in 5 seasons.
Choosing not to shoot everything changes everything on smaller properties.
I also hunt in zone D and we have more deer there than we did 5 years ago because we’re being more selective in what we shoot and how many we shoot.

Hey CNC, I will agree there’s not an issue with over harvest of deer in those counties in north AL. At least the ones I’m
most familiar with. There’s PLENTY of deer. Some places there’s so many habitat is suffering.

I think there’s definitely a change in buck age structure and some serious high grading taking place.

Which ones are you referring to??.....We have a zone C for a reason don’t we??....I know I grew up in Marshall Co and there definitely isnt “plenty” of deer there….I’m pretty familiar with Blount and Dekalb and they have what I’d call “some” deer but not plenty.

Much of that area (Sand Mt.) can't support a lot of deer. BTW, someone told me you couldn't judge an area just by what's on your own property.

I agree with your second statement but on the first one I think it would be more accurate to say Sand Mt “doesn’t” support a lot of deer instead of can’t……There’s actually a good bit of stuff for them to eat but there’s not enough cover for them to reproduce with the coyote population that’s present along with people shooting them….If folks completely quit shooting does and trapped a few yotes it could have a much better population than it does……There used to be a nice little population over behind Albertville airport and over toward Needmore where my wife grew up…..I think last I heard it had about been killed out.

You're splitting hairs with words. There are areas in this state that can carry many more deer than others, for various reasons. Some folks need to realize they can't have a 150" buck behind every other tree and a doe behind all the others .

Lol, one guy that I track for on sand mountain kills studs every year off 75 acres. It's all about location and hunting pressure

Ummmm, it's always about location.

Yep. I was very instrumental in pushing for that Zone C and helped set the boundaries based on Population estimates, land uses and urbanization. Hunter input and harvest estimates were also used. The TN valley and surrounding counties are heavily populated and deer populations can not hold up to extended harvest pressure. Parts of Blount, Morgan, Cullman and Marshall counties will never support large deer populations no matter what the regulations are because the habitat is awful. I was mainly referring to some of the counties in the northwest and north central part of the state you mentioned. Those populations are moderate to high, and in some cases, too high.

Lot folks here in lauderdale county won’t take one to processer any more because of price increases. Have to do game check now or they won’t take them . The ones like me does it myself don’t do the game check. I see same amount deer as usual. Seen over 40 this week out in the snow but not a single person hunting but me. From opening day till now I’ve heard fewer shots than years past . I know for sure been lot less mature bucks killed this year. Don’t understand that part . Very few game pics of mature bucks from anyone around here . Neighbor killed two in his cow pasture walking in circles last week . Disease deer . Both bucks. Took them for testing . Haven t heard back yet . Don’t know if that has anything to do with fewer mature bucks . Strange season so far . It was so dry for months here might have something do with it . We had a great acorn crop this year a not many deer came to plots or feed because didn’t rain a they didn’t rot for long time .

Guess I need to go down to my 3 acre pasture at the back of my 11 acres and change out my cell camera batteries and freshen up the corn pile. I will make sure I only shoot one deer so I am being fair to the big land owners. I will make sure after i shoot my one deer I tell all the other deer to stay off my property so I am not tempted shoot more than one deer.

So let me ask you this then……it kinda goes back to something Goatkiller mentioned……If we end the season with many of those counties like Jackson, Madison, Marshall, Blount, Colbert, Franklin, etc having Game Check show 35-50% drops in doe harvesting…..do we just ignore that and say everything is fine because of a few people’s perception??.....If so then what use are the GC numbers?.....When do we use them to make decisions?

I’m really curious about counties like Jackson…..last year they killed 2400 does and right now they’re at 1400…..That’s a big change

Marshall county🤢🤮

I can’t speak for everywhere. I can only speak for NW AL in the counties I have clients and lots of contacts. Acorn crops were phenomenal. That alone usually leads to lower hunter success. Food plots on a lot of properties were total failures. I assist a local processor with quartering deer and caping a few weekends out of the season and deer are in superb physical condition. They’re very healthy. Also, they’re set to hit a record on how many they’ve taken in, so ppl are killing plenty of deer and still have plenty left. It’s not a population issue CNC. I promise you that. Everyone up here talks about how many deer they have.

Yeah , I don't give a hoot what GC numbers say , Jackson County hasn't magically lost 50% of our deer from one year to the next. That doesn't even warrant a discussion . I think we all know GC is HIGHLY flawed .

I don’t even know anybody that’s killed a doe this year but my circle is pretty small.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess y'all are seeing some.

Plenty

Game Check may have its flaws but I dont think its 1,000 deer off kinda flawed......Its certainly not showing that in every county so something is happening that caused Jackson Co hunters to shoot far less does....as well as quite a few other counties....I will say that I think one of the reasons GC was put into place is because its very likely that it'll pick up on changes ahead of hunter perception......Again, if you're not gonna take the numbers to mean anything then whats the use in having it? Just like 2dogs said.....you cant base everything off just what you're seeing on your own property

Most people don’t cut up there own deer and processing fees have tripled in the last 10 years. I’m sure that’s cut back on some of the killing.

Probably several factors coming together this year. I ain't worried bout it.

For what its worth, buck harvest is also way down from last year for Jackson.......Last year was 3099 bucks reported.......Right now its at 2023....Those are mighty big swings.....It'll be interesting to see if hunter perception begins to change over the next year or two

I damn sure ain't hurting for deer here .

Could it be with processing fees going up some stopped game checking again all across the state?

Doubtful......you would see it happening pretty evenly in every county

I think the culprit is that folks have shot the chit out of them and now there arent as many…….What a few people are seeing on their own personal property doesn’t compare with what Game Check is “seeing” across the whole county or counties. It would be virtually impossible for any individual to eyeball such a change across such a short time period……Hunter perception will lag behind what GC is seeing

If you add those laying in the ditches around here it would run the score up. Most I have ever seen . Saw 4 fresh ones in Scottsboro the other morning.
I still ain't worried.

Skyline is definitely shot out due to poor management by the state.

Its really no different than when we were slaughtering does back in the early 2000’s……Nobody was worried about it back then either until after the fact……Shooting a bunch of extra does is shooting a bunch of extra does no matter if it happens because of a 2 a day rule or a baiting rule......and there's definitely been a lot more shot.

Stop shooting does

You will have more deer

The people that slaughter does aren’t going to let a 3 1/2 year old buck walk anyway but
if they would stop killing every doe they would have more bucks to kill

It ain’t rocket science

Yep. Trigger restraint is the source of the problem. Which has been stated multiple times throughout this thread. Baiting, long seasons etc. are all contributing factors but not the root of the problem.

Might as well not even have seasons if you’re gonna use that rationale……

I enjoy hunting.

Im lost at this point..whats your gripe again cnc..this been goin so long i dun fergot

What does shooting 3.5 year old deer have to do with shooting does???

Dove into the abyss and looked at GC numbers around the state. South AL seems to kill more does than bucks
North of Birmingham seems to kill more bucks than does
That’s not absolute but just a quick look. I know there are outliers but it kinda seems to be the trend.

Are there any correlations to compare with the sentiment in this thread.

Might could make a chart or something

Yeah it ain't. I've prolly killed more does than 99% on this forum , I've also passed more 3 YO bucks than 99% of em too.

I’ve killed almost 100 does the last 10 years and zero 3 year olds bucks I’m aware of too. 😉

No correlation there.

Theres a different dynamic of hunter density to deer density......I'd say that likely plays a big part in a lot of what we see with north versus south

If we ginna have a deer killin contest..can i count texas?

Nah we just some redneck meat hunters down here. If it’s brown it’s down.

All you’re doing is fattening them up for your neighbors to shoot them. I know one for sure has been playing brown it’s down this season.

We dealt with it to the point where folks were absurdly bragging about killing the millionaire clubs deer

They slaughtered 2.5 yr old bucks all around us. They benefited from our club.

Hey Rainbowstew I’m glad you posted that. This is actually a prime example of the way I look at it. Obviously you have some deer around your 11 acres. Let’s say you shoot two of those nice bucks and 2-3 does off of your 11 acres. What’s the carrying capacity of your 11 acres? Did those two bucks and 2-3 does need 11 acres to thrive? Or does it take 40-120 acres for them to thrive? Now let’s say you have a neighbor with the same 10-15 acres, he shoots two more of the bucks and 2-3 more does. That’s 4 bucks and 4-6 does off of 20-25 acres. We all know it takes a lot more than 20-25 acres to raise that many deer. All I’m saying is there’s a lot of small acreage folks killing way more deer than their property is raising. I’m not saying if I own 1000 acres I need more than 3 buck tags, but there’s no way someone with 11 acres needs the same 3. It’s not sustainable (in my opinion). Your scenario is happening all across Alabama, on much smaller acreage too. It just is, that’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.
I don’t know what exactly the answer is, but right now it’s a free for all. Feels like it anyway.

CNC I’m impressed. Even for you. 12 pages on a topic that has had page after page discussed and argued about prior to this thread. Well done sir.

So just because someone has more land they should be entitled to more deer than a small acreage land owner? Wish I had a 300 acres or 1000 acres. If i did I would be hunting it and killing deer by the state laws and not by public opinion standards and worrying about what neighbors were killing. I get my 11 acres is not going to hold or sustain these deer that come on my property. I don't kill every deer that steps foot on my property and I have yet to kill one this year. I plant a nice food plot for them and feed them all year, hunt by the regs, so if a deer shows up on my property I am going to kill it if I want to and not feel guilty because I only have 11 acres.

The lack of deer in some areas is mismanagement by the state, lack of game wardens and deer hunters that don't give a crap and kill any deer that walks. It's a free for all in this state. When you have 1 or 2 wardens per county there is no way you will get compliance with any regs that are designed to sustain deer numbers. Because if people want to kill over the limit they will because they know they are not going to get caught. I have hunted and fished in Alabama of and on since 1989 and I have never been checked by a game warden while hunting or fishing.

I would say pretty much everybody on here is against big govt but when it comes to deer hunting some of you are ok with the state telling a landowner how many deer they can kill on THEIR property? Rules will be followed by the honest hunters and the outlaws will do as they please. I know I have them for neighbors. Get rid of Corn, Cameras and 1 Doe a day and it may make a difference but I doubt it. Why? Limited enforcement of game laws.

Yeah, just got back on and saw that. What you stated was 100% my point Globe, and Rainbow could not have done a better job of making my point for me with his statement and pictures. I'm guessing someone in the area around him owns or controls and large block adjacent to him and he's pulling those deer off of them. Rest assured, all those deer are not living on his 11 acres. In most of AL, with the carrying capacity of most land, it takes 10-60 acres for 1 deer to survive on, depending on the quality of habitat. So the math is really not hard to do. Rainbow might not be shooting all those deer and maybe he's very selective on his harvest, maybe not. But there are tons of people in AL, with property situations just like his, that between them and their family, they will kill all those deer and especially all those young bucks, if given the chance. It's always been that way.

Land is so fragmented (property line wise, Atleast in NoAl, that most people are just pulling deer of other peoples property. large +100acre farm tracts are disappearing daily.

Some counties have to share a single warden with the neighboring counties or at least that's how it used to be. There is definitely not a warden for every county in the state, unless something has changed in the last 5 yrs. Everyone has to somehow get along. Here's a situation for you Rainbow. How would you like this: Dont know what your situation is but lets say your 11 acre property juts up into a rich landowner that owns 1500 or 3000 acres, under strict management, and has plenty of money. Then lets say that you are shooting quite a few deer each year on your 11 acres and he's hearing a shot pretty much every weekend on your property. How will you feel if he decides that you're detrimental to his management program and he's tired of you shooting all the young bucks he's trying to grow, and he decides to spend $5000 and put a high fence down all three sides of the property lines between him and your property and effectively makes yours completely worthless to hunt. At that point, I'd have to assume that you would be just as mad about him fencing those deer off of yours and making your property worthless from a hunting standpoint, as he is about you shooting all those deer that he's raising and are living on his property that are walking across the line to a bait pile and getting shot on your 11. Not advocating it in any way, but if it keeps up and keeps on, at some point, it'll end up hurting the little guy a whole lot worse than it does the big guy because at the end of the day, the big land owners really do control the resource, even if they dont own it. Just saying the small landowners need to start thinking about the big picture more than they do. And it's not like this is anything new that has just come about since baiting started. It's been happening for years and years. Only difference is that now the corn piles are much larger and no longer hidden, now that the little guy doesnt have to worry about the GW checking in on him and it's not like there were ever enough GWs around to enforce or do anything about it back when baiting was 100% illegal.

I will say this, Alabama does have a very "My Deer" type attitude, whereas other states have much more enforcement and make it clear that no one owns any deer or wildlife regardless of whom's property that animal is on. They treat game more strictly as public property/resource where here it's more a management-type attitude. I don't like big gubbamint telling anyone what to do, but lack of enforcement probably plays a roll in any over-harvesting that maybe occurring. I've personally been very surprised how few encounters I've had here in AL with Mr. Green Jeans. Seems like I couldn't get a line wet in Texas without running into them.
I got a ticket for a couple of 1/2 inch undersized speckled trout in Texas City by a couple of undercovers that had been watching me for hours with binoculars. They rolled up in a black 4x4 unmarked with do rags and plain clothes. I thought they were there to ask if I had extra bait to give up. $265 ticket and took my fish. Still not over it.

Now that’s bullchit.

Speaking of the GW, I have NEVER heard of a hunting situation where the GW just happened onto a property. It ALWAYS stems from a complaint, or a tip or an incident. With that being said you are right Abolt. They can’t enforce anything without being tipped off first.

[/quote}] Yeah, just got back on and saw that. What you stated was 100% my point Globe, and Rainbow could not have done a better job of making my point for me with his statement and pictures. I'm guessing someone in the area around him owns or controls and large block adjacent to him and he's pulling those deer off of them. Rest assured, all those deer are not living on his 11 acres.
[/quote]
Yeah keep guessing but your wrong about adjacent land around me. Pulling deer of them? Pretty funny! Isn't that what all deer clubs and lease strive to do? Never said the deer lived on my property. How much property do you own abolt? Or you just hunting a club or lease and don't like neighbors killing deer?

I could care less if someone wanted to build a high fence next to me. Not every deer lives on the 1k you mentioned. They would lock out all other deer and leave them to me to kill and then I would not to have to listen to a whinny neighbor bitchin about me killing his deer.

Disagree. We started with a high density, and you can kill alot of doe's when your density is high. If the limit didn't matter, why did they lower it? It used to be 2 a day, now its one. And even if that reset the population, as you claim, the much lower doe density means you can't kill as many to maintain the population or increase it, it will just decrease.

That is what I am saying is happening. Between hunting, and coytote's, the doe's are taking a hit. The bucks aren't, because you can only kill 3 of them a year, legally. And then I do also agree that game check is only for the law abiding.

They cruise thru my lease every turkey season. Of course I sealed off the easy access point so that might slow them down a little.

Why would you not want them there?

""I have seen the enemy, and it is us"

Unless they open a night time season those look to be pretty safe.

I get what you're saying but you can't compare hen turkeys to doe deer , apples and oranges . Hens as a group lay a bunch of eggs , but getting those eggs to hatch , then to flying age is very difficult and the % is VERY low.

Every situation is different. The 175 I hunt on is not the same as hunting 175 in south Alabama. Should NOT be a state enforced limit based on how many acres you have.

Good stuff Stickers 🤣🤣

I hav said for many years - them deer don't wear name tags - but people sure act like they do. I guess i do to sometimes 😀

I want to try to shoot 5 r bettr and manage my small peace - and i would lov to hav great neighbors. Wish i could grow 130 inch deer a lot easier. But At the end of the day - i am very blessed to still be able to go and do it and hope i always hav an appetite for it. Dang i lov hunting!! Gone hate to see it end. Only got one shooter n tville and he no monster - but he 5 and a good Bama deer and i sure hav had fun chasing him. Wish that bass-turd would cooperate bettr 🤣🤣

This. I have 217 acres. Big enough to kinda lose yourself in if you don't look too far over the hill - not big enough to manage properly. I share all my deer with my neighbors, and they share theirs with me. My young sons have a free pass, but I typically don't shoot young bucks, unless I can get one close to me with my flintlocks. We don't have a high deer density, but we have enough to keep it interesting (except in Dec). No way to regulate mine in the same way some would regulate the same number of acres in Marshall Co., or Bullock Co.

PWYSE, its not that I necessarily have an objection to a warden being on the property, I don't have anything to hide and I am a legal and ethical hunter, but the easy entry way is also an easy entry way for others as well. So stopping uninvited "piddlers" has the consequence of stopping all uninvited people.

If the GW called me and wanted access, I would probably give him the gate code. But I don't like being surprised when I am hunting by finding someone there I wasn't expecting.


I would think we would be less of an interest now since we can't bait.

Ah I gotcha. That makes sense.

Updated doe map.......

SE Alabama finishing the season strong with some doe blasting

Since the rut is on down there... you'd think they'd hold off for a Spike or a 4 pointer but you know we are over here in the real world..........

I guarantee you there’s a portion of it that’s coming from people shooting does because “there’s not enough bucks to breed them!!!!”……..Give this setup a couple more years and watch what happens…….Frankie called it……folks gotta learn the hard way. This will end up being no different than the 2 per day doe rule…..It wont be until another few years down the road that folks will start looking back and saying….”Hey, remember when we thought that was a good idea??”

Keep in mind that what you're looking at on that map is also a lot of 4 year highs in those southeastern counties and a lot of 4 year lows in the northern counties. I have a feeling that the "crash" stage is lagging just a little behind in the southeastern counties. I'd imagine that its gonna be less severe than in the northern counties but still occurring just the same.

What's the buck harvest look like in the southwestern counties?

I’m gonna throw out the last 4 year’s buck harvest totals for a few counties....aka "the trend". Looking at the map I just posted and using that info along with this….you tell me if it appears like something needs to be looked at further in these places. I just picked out a few examples. Granted there’s 11 days left but most of these places are post peak rut. Jackson is probably the most concerning in my opinion because its always been one of the premiere counties in the state. Hate to see a great county go in decline

County.....20-21......21-22.....22-23......23-24

Blount.......1077.........994.......1181........852
Colbert......1160.......1028........955........712
Franklin....1565.......1427......1554........1133
Jackson....2946.......2626.......3099.......2226
Marshall......760........723.........870..........588
Morgan........792........676........872..........629

Most of them have been pretty consistent.....There's a couple that are a little suspect. The southwestern portion seems to be the least effected as of now

They must not be using corn in the south eastern part of the state, or all your corn and cell camera theories are wrong?

Looking at Choctaw, Marengo, Dallas, Clarke, and Wilcox on the buck numbers: huge increase between the 19-20 season and the 20-21 season. Harvest numbers in all 5 counties doubled. Why? That was when Chuckie required a harvest ID to have deer processed and Covid put a ton of hunters in the woods for an extended period of time. More people hunting more days than normal and more people were forced into reporting what they were actually killing but had not been reporting previously. If you just looked at the numbers, without evaluating the underlying data and root causes, you'd think a population explosion had occurred in all 5 counties and there were twice as many bucks available to kill, and they killed them. Not the case.

20-21 to 21-22 was pretty much flat. 4 counties up 100 or so and a one county down by 100 or so. No regulation changes, Covid and stay at home work still going on, people hunting a ton more than normal and still killing a lot more deer. Just about what you'd expect.

21-22 to 22-23 buck harvest was down across the board in all 5 counties. Choctaw down 10%, Marengo down 10%, Clarke down 15%, Dallas down 25%, Wilcox down 16%. No regulation changes. Why the decrease? Because all those people were required to go back to in person work and simply were not able to hunt as much. Couple this with the higher than normal kill rates in the 20-21 and 21-22 "Covid work from home, hunt every morning and afternoon before logging onto your computer for 4 hrs a day years", and you'd expect to see a drop off in kills in the 22-23 season. Less time to hunt and not as many deer left in the woods to shoot.

Covid and all that additional time in the woods was an anomaly, and it has to be taken into account. Additional man days hunted, and higher than normal annual kill rates as a result, are skewing the statistics. The additional deer killed in that 2 year period are also one of the reasons that this year is down. Less deer in the woods available to be shot due to higher than normal/ potentially overharvest, in the previous 2 seasons, means you'll see drops in this years and future years numbers too. Couple this with Alabama's kill them all, virtually zero trigger restraint attitude, and it's going to take a while to recover from the 2 yrs when AL killed 30% more than the historical norm for 2 straight years. If people dont lighten up on the trigger finger, it'll take a long long time to build back up. Hopefully, that's what's happening and why the harvest numbers are down this year. It's what needs to happen in some areas. It also ties into your fragmented property theory. The areas with more people, on small homesite properties, having significantly more available free time to hunt and being able to do it right out their backdoor, resulted in a ton more deer being killed, in areas which might not have the carrying capacity and herd dynamics to withstand the additional harvest, which they are now paying the piper for doing.

Lots of variables at play. Corn makes it easier to move and position deer, but it's only one leg out of the 4 on the stool. I looked at bucks but I'm sure doe harvest in these counties follows a similar trend.

😁

No baiting allowed in Colbert due to CWD buffer zone.

Excellent point on Colbert there Rainbow, but regardless of your most excellent observation, it's obviously still the corn's fault. Corn is always the question, answer and reason.

One other point to Lauderdale and Colbert. When CWD was discovered they extended the season even further with no limit!

Yep, different changes most likely producing the same result…..fewer deer. You can see what happens to your doe harvest numbers with a decline occurring……those other umpteen counties are showing decline too. Hunter perception probably hasn’t caught up the change yet …..or if it has its being blamed on “ a weird year”. I suspect the southeastern corner will likely follow the same pattern in the next year or two. It’ll be interesting to see how high the doe harvest keeps climbing this year in those areas. Last year we added 15-20% onto the harvest totals in a lot of those counties in just the 10 days of Feb…..If you get 25-35% increases then it’ll get interesting.

The thing is corn got legalized in the entire state the same day, so how do you explain the lag in the south east counties, if corn was the problem

The argument/logic is that the northern counties have more fragmented land holdings.... i.e. there's a corn pile on every 5 acre plot with someone killing a doe.

Yeah, I’m guessing its also higher deer densities on average in the southeastern counties ……The negative impacts are being seen sooner in the lower deer density, more highly fragmented areas. ….Most of the southeastern counties have good deer populations and lots of large clubs/landowners for the small property folks to siphon off of. A lot of those northern counties didn’t really have any cream to be skimming off the top to begin with ……...

As a result, I think you’re seeing a little more prolonged climb to the harvest peak in the southeastern counties. The small property hunters there can keep going back to the well for longer without it running dry basically. It’ll eventually peak and decline but I’d bet the decline won’t be as dramatic as the counties in the north. You’ve still got the bigger properties in the south to prop up the populations which will help buffer the impact in comparison I would think

Look at what happened when we passed the 2 a day doe rule…..You had numerous years of doe harvest increases as populations were being killed off followed by a decline in harvest once we had the populations at lower levels and opportunities decreased. It’s the same trend occurring now, we’re just changing a different variable this time that’s getting more deer killed….. I don’t think just telling hunters “not to shoot does” is going to work the same this go round though. It’s hard to tell all of those small acreage properties to just not have an impact.

Simple solution: limit the number of does in zone C to increase the herd size (2 or 3 limit should be fine for even the most hungry hunters on top of the 3 buck limit).

Yep this seems like the simple solution. Eventually AL will have to put some limit on does. I think AL has gotten away with no doe limit (or I guess it's 100+ deer) due to a residual attitude of "don't shoot does", but that has faded.

I could have very easily killed 10-15 plus does in very limited sits this year. I'm sure most others who hunt with any regularity could as well.

The only conclusion I can draw thus far is about the folks hunting SE AL... them boys down there love to kill a doe at the tail end of the season.... why'd they wait till January? The dern rut is on like neck bone down there and what happens.... the doe blasting goes through the roof? Whut?

I don't think what we are feeding them has anything to do with that that's just trigger control. Where's all the spikes and 4 pointers fellas? Where'd you get that blood on your Jeans Shorts? ..... C'Mon Man!


Florida hunters are who I'm blaming there's a bunch in that area. We need to move this discussion over to the FLDeer message board and see what they've got to say for themselves..

FL hunters dont have anything on Alabama hunters, as far as the killing every deer they see goes, and especially not on the LA boys that ride over to hunt the SW side of the state. I had two LA boys one year on a big lease I had, and they were super great guys, funny as all get out, but they were a bunch of deer killing fools. They shot something every time they went in the woods and when they cleaned a deer, every bone on it was glistening white. Not even enough meat left on a rib to attract ants. My lab, when I would bring her up, used to love to grab a deer leg and run around chewing on it. When those boys pulled into the skinning shed, she didnt even bother walking back there. She knew every shred of meat, gristle and sinew, was going in that big cooler. They'd bring 120 quart coolers and leave every weekend with them full. It was time to go home when the lid on the cooler would no longer close. LOL.

We had a group like that when I was in the big lease. I appreciated them doing the work the rest wouldn’t do.

We had so many hunters claiming they were killing too does when in fact our population was continuing to grow. Fortunately we had the habitat to support and protect a growing herd.

On 5000 acres we would kill 50-55 deer with 30-40 being does. A few years we killed a few more deer overall, yet half the hunters thought we were killing too many does. Perspective is a funny thing coming from each individual. We had browse lines from the front to the back. Greenfields were eaten down and had guys saying the fields just weren’t growing and needed fertilizer. Of course that changed when each field ended up with an exclusion cage. Cost the club some money but those thoughts went away.

I was always intrigued by how each group of hunters expressed differing sightings and thoughts than other groups. One group would only see does, another only bucks. One group would see small bucks rubbing huge cedar trees and we had no mature bucks. Yada yada yada

I mean the list goes on and on when research has shown numerous old wives tells to be just that.

I was in that club for 14 years and we experienced a huge die off from blue tongue in 2006? and deer sighting never checked up. I was so concerned when I was finding all those dead deer that late summer and fall. I called friends that were biologist and was told it seas bad all over the south and thruout Midwest.

I figured it happened locally because we’d gained so much in population that caused more deaths. Less numbers would’ve had deer more spread out maybe?

I’m not denying killing too many does will happen, of course it happens.

I’ve just seen so many hunter preconceived ideas get squashed by research and especially gps studies. I don’t know if they’re as easily accessed as when I was in QDMA and biologist would link research papers in the forums. Haven’t been there in years. Noticed they rebranded I’d assume from all the backlash. 😝

I'm no game biologist but I can absolutely promise you, zero chance that bucks breed most of the does that come into estrous on my lease in Bullock. Not even the second time. Based on camera counts and observations, my does outnumber bucks by at lease a 8-1 margin and that's conservative. Last week I saw 15 deer at one sit (same place you tracked that one last year) including 1 buck. The other day when I shot, I had seen 9 deer including a 4pt and the 9pt. I hardly hear a shot around me. I'm watching 6 does on a plot camera right now (no corn) and no bucks. If I can kill a doe or two this weekend that will bring our total doe harvest to 6 in 2 seasons. I'm not gonna slaughter the does but I definitely need to take a few more out. Maybe then I'll stop getting pics of spotted fawns in April.

Doe numbers should be based off of the carrying capacity of the land…..If the land is in good shape and the deer are in condition then its not an issue with too many does….its an issue with hunters shooting too many bucks…..Shooting does will not fix that. It will only cause you to have less deer and less bucks produced.

Exactly. Had a biologist come to my place, just a few miles south of where eyedoc hunts. Told me , we were nowhere near healthy herd capacity. Had several hunters tell me I had too many does, needed to start shooting them. Biologist looked at browse line and food,I asked the hunters why they thought we had too many, and their answer was cause I see 20 does and no bucks. Kinda crazy how we come to the conclusions we do. It hasn't been until recently you've heard of hunters saying they have too many deer, kinda like a banker saying I have too much money!

Are you saying to quit hunting that property to let buck numbers catch back up?
Shoot does to maintain population of does and no bucks

They never will if birth rates are 50/50 buck to doe.


How does it pan out?

CNC, it’s not that simple.

I said that shooting does wouldn’t fix the problem. If I’m not mistaken the property Doc is referring to is 100 acres or less….or there abouts…….If all the folks in the “neighborhood” are collectively shooting too many bucks then him shooting his does is just gonna mean he’ll have less deer….It doesn’t do anything to change the over harvesting of bucks that’s occurring. You’ll just end up with a situation where the land could support more deer but you’re keeping it suppressed because everyone is whacking bucks at a high rate.

I'll add this too……..I’d recommend that Doc not shoot his does just from the standpoint of a hunting strategy…..The best you can do in a situation like he’s got going on is to sit back and cherry pick the bucks you want to shoot……If you want more meat then strategically select a doe one day when it doesn’t alert and educate the others….If not though, just leave them alone and let them stay unpressured……Just let it be and enjoy seeing deer on each hunt. Don’t worry about shooting does just to give away in an attempt to “manage” the doe herd and late fawns for the bigger area. Its false logic to think that shooting your does is going to improve your hunting experience. That’s just my opinion.

While the facts actually lead to the contrary in some situations. That’s why deer management is not a “do this for all situations” strategy. There’s some properties that have been managed for many years with a pretty significant doe harvest, very selective and low buck harvest, and they’re some of the best places you’ll ever set foot on. 🤷🏼‍♂️

The post was referencing Bamaeyedoc's situation.......not ALL scenarios under the sun......Sorry if that was confusing.

The underlying sentiment is too many does are being killed period.

Falls under the not all scenarios are the same
My personal experiences of deer hunting forty plus years doesn’t always align with others. I try to keep an open mind and realize what’s being seen isn’t always the case.

I learned something today that I thought no way. No reason as why it should yet GPS proved me wrong. I’ve been adamant no way it would happen yet it did. Things that make you go hmmmmmmm…….:

Feelings shouldn’t be a part of facts.

I can assure you my hunting experience will be great. I’m blessed to have a place to hunt where I see deer on every sit and when I carry my wife, she’s going to see deer. If I carry my kids, they’re going to see deer. I’m going to shoot a couple of does for meat and enjoy it. It’s not a game management strategy because it’s such a small tract but I guess I can see why it was taken in that context tho. Carry on. Let’s get to 40 pages!

No number problems in Mobile country. I saw 20-100 every day just driving the 8 miles back and forth from work and often will count a herd of 40-60 at a time.

Killing more does to produce more bucks is like killing more hens to have more gobblers. Thats not how it works imo. A lot of deer kept within its carrying capacity is a good thing. One thing y’all aren’t speaking on is buck dispersal and how much of a thing that is. I don’t believe does disperse like bucks do. I can’t tell you how many 2.5 and 3.5 your old bucks we let walk, only for them to take up a new home a couple miles away the following year. If your property can sustain it, why not have it. I can’t get behind the too many does mindset. If you start shooting a bunch of does your going to start seeing less deer, I’ve already been down that road with the doe slaughtering of the 2000’s

Whatever happened to a balanced deer herd?

Like a friend does with his place of a little over 200 acres. He went to his neighbors and they set goals and worked together. One adjoining neighbor sold and a new person moved in and disrupted the process. Soon the neighbor was upset with not seeing deer. My friend finally convinced the guys to quit shooting all the young bucks and they’re back to seeing and killing good mature bucks.

A mature buck is gonna be 5.5 to 7.5 yr olds. If folks could get past shooting and let those 3.5 and 4.5 yr olds walk they’d see something in then. Keeping the doe population in check so as to maintain a 1/1 or as close to it as possible

Here’s a question, how many does can a mature buck service?

Is he like a herd bull with cows or is he a lesser breeder.
Watched a Marty Stouffer documentary on the life of a whitetail buck was really interesting. The buck died of stress at age 4.5. He bred himself to death. Stress is a terrible thing and is a killer in both humans and animals alike.

I’m seeing pictures of some VERY stressed bucks this year, due to breeding season being too long, from skewed ratios. Some are very emaciated. I’m not seeing it near as much on balanced properties.

Maybe they are stressed. I think we had a thread earlier that stress can cause antlers to drop early? I’m not sure because the pic was at night but last week I got a pic of what I think is a buck with antlers dropped. It’s a big ole deer. There is zero food in the woods and my deer are in hayfields eating on brown grass. My pitiful food plots ain’t helping much.

I can't even imagine seeing that... like a herd of zebras or something...

This is what I’m talking about Matt…..According to Backwoods Cowboy you just went to his place and told him he didn’t need to shoot does because he wasn’t anywhere near his carrying capacity ……Now I’m telling his “neighbor” literally the same thing and you’re arguing for something different. Are you sure you’re not just trying to argue with me instead of it being about the point??

I know what the text books say and I know how it played out on the King Ranch…..but there’s what the text books say is suppose to happen and then there’s what’s actually occurring in our unique reality. The text books don’t have the rules of the game set the way our landscape and properties are laid out……or with our same hunter density and the impacts of very high feeder densities and very liberal season lengths and liberal doe harvesting rules, no accountability for buck limits, etc etc……You have to apply a solution that’s adapted to fit the realities in front of us instead of just using the generic formula from the text book.

If you look down in that grass you'll probably find a lot of green browse.

I tell you what some of this QDMA ideology is kinda like when its applied to most real world situations in Alabama……..Its like if I went down here to Hurtsboro and leased a few hundred acres where I shot me about 5 or 6 does and a couple of good bucks and then preached about how I’ve seen “balancing the herd” work like a charm!......The reality would be that all I did was go into a good area, shoot some deer, and call it “managing”…..What was done didn’t really have anything to do with what was seen but we like to convince ourselves otherwise…… What was seen had far more to do with what’s happening on the thousands of acres around that smaller parcel.

There’s a lot of folks out there that are just shooting deer and calling it successful management when the reality of what is being seen is hinging far more on what’s occurring around them…..My advice is take into consideration what everyone else is doing and let that be just as important as what you yourself are…….. Just about any place where I have a few hundred acres or less, I’m stacking the does in there and cherry picking bucks off of them while letting cars, coyotes, and other hunters “manage” the herd. That doesn’t mean I’d never shoot one for meat or just for someone to have fun….but I’m not going in and shooting does for the sake of management. You’ll never manage the deer herd that exists on a much bigger scale around you through a few hundred acre property…..you’ll only stand to decrease the quality of the hunting on that particular parcel.

That’s just my skrategy though…..YMMV

Is this BS still going???

I hope you know I wouldn’t argue for arguments sake. I guess the point I’m trying to make is it’s equally irresponsible for either one of us to throw blanket statements out there not knowing all the details. You have a picture of deer in a field and a guy who wants to kill a few does. You said he’s not going into improve his hunting by shooting a couple of does. I didn’t even think that was in question, yet that’s where you went with it. It’s certainly not going to harm anything. Other than saying that I wouldn’t make a harvest recommendation based off a picture alone. I made the recommendations to Backwoods Cowboy based off his objectives and the habitat condition I saw on site. If bamaeyedoc wanted a consult I’d do the same for him. Recommendations would be made considering three things, being, objectives, habitat condition and restraints or limiting factors from adjoining properties.
Im going to assume here that bamaeyedoc don’t have neighbors shooting a lot of does. Could be wrong. And I’m the last person to apply generic formulas from a textbook. I’m actually well outside that box.

Ok......

Oh but I would!!!

Damn straight

I’d even argue with my self. I’m against projecting but I’m gonna project

QDMA Never advocated to kill every doe you see

Quality Deer Management Association is NOT TDM and it was often time intertwined for those that didn’t understand the idea.

They did advocate for the hunting group to set goals then establish a plan
They did advocate for letting 1.5 yr old bucks walk and get another year on them
Many setup 3.5 yr old as a killable deer realize most hunters would never agree to go older


Age and nutrition are the foundation. Genetics are irrelevant as no way to change a free herds.

Basically from a Fisheries and Wildlife perspective in AL you just make it up. Whatever it is... you just make it up as you go. One guy has too many does the next-door neighbor needs to kill off his. You just make it up. That's been going on with "studies" and this crap for decades and decades. You are dealing with a bunch of BS job justification and people who want to play around outside all day and demand that you accept that what they doing is important. The only important people at the DCNR for most of us.... are the ones wearing a gun on their hip. The rest are just a waste of funding.

If you have a lot of deer but your buck/doe ratio is let's say = 1/10 1 Buck 10 Does.

WHO SHOT THE BUCKS? That's your dam problem. 100% of the time.

Blast the does... have less deer next year.

This is actually that simple. Unfortunately - people think too much. Moron reads a text book written by another moron about a study some bucktoothed dumbass kids at Awebren participated in and now we are all stupid because of it.

All you have to do is look at your situation and use your ability to formulate your own opinion which quite frankly people simply don't want to do. They want to be told what to do because they assume they aren't smart enough to figure out something this basic. Wrong.

If your neighbors are blasting all the small bucks you have 2 options: 1) You have to stop shooting them 2) Move somewhere else. That's all you can do in an environment this liberal where there is effectively zero enforcement.

Back when the QDMA got started they preached a 1:2 ratio . Wellllll at the time there was one way to do it ,,,, slaughter does.. then is when they needed to limited buck harvest not wait 20 damn years and then do it .

All the places I hunted back then the bucks look healthy at the end of season and had does out the ass. Before QDMA got started you heard the saying from older guys ,,,,, more does more bucks .

IMO ,,,,,how they pushed QDMA is why we are where we are . To many does was never a problem in most places the problem was they needed more bucks . Things should've been different back then and over the years . But money and a few with a little pull got in the way

What’s the replacement rates. I rarely see anything on that. QDMA had charts (CNC) to show how long it takes to replace mature bucks by age.

I’d really like to see that

Ok, let me get my part straight. Before matt even looked at my land he asked me what my objective was. I told him in this order;

1 I want as many deer as my property could hold and still be healthy.
2 I wanted to improve my age class of bucks to have as many 5-6 year Olds as possible.

Every improvement matt gave me was toward those goals. He walked all over my property and showed me how to tell if my land was over populated. This was MY goal and he help a bunch. What he said made sense and he showed me how to tell. Not just take my word. We both agrèd my property could hold a significant amount more deer.

The reason I called him, and I really didn't want to post this on the internet, was because in my opinion I have alot of deer. I have several people come to my place and tell me I NEED to start shooting does. It's not uncommon to see 25-35 deer in my pastures. I didn't know! I was very satisfied with the explanations matt gave me and am working toward implementing every suggestions he made. My comment to Bama eyedoc was to try to share the info I had with him. Which is just because you see a bunch of does, doesn't mean you NEED to shoot them. I know where he hunts and I know his neighbors very well.
I really don't care if someone wants to shoot does. If you want to shoot them shoot them. But there is a difference between want and need. I really don't care if you are allowed to feed corn, or use cameras or not. I really don't care what my neighbors do or how long the season is, as I cannot control any of this. I will worry about my place and what I can control. I will say I only have about 350 acres and the difference I've made by implementing these ideas is enough for my neighbor to start doing the same . He has about 350 acres also. If the question is how do we help the STATE manage the deer herd, it is my opinion that the season is too long. Way too many deer being killed and the EASIEST way to correct it is to shorten the season. We cannot simply continue to be allowed to kill 180 deer a year legally. Just my .02

Dang good post right here 👍🏾

I think we can give up on a shortened season, even in areas it’s not needed. So I’ve been told anyway. Conserving the resource for the benefit of populations and hunters don’t matter. Keeping certain ppl happy matters more apparently.

Nah, it’s about money

CNC will beat the ever living shite out of a dead horse

Exactly, and I bet you would say the same thing about corn and cameras, it ain't going nowhere. So it comes down to hunters doing the right thing.

^^^This^^^

If we want to control does, set a bag limit to limit the doe take in parts of the state that need it

Seems like this is starting to get into fair chase with corn and cameras.

Fair chase died with a guy looking 100-200 yards out over a field or food plot in a shooting house with a 15x scope on a tripod. It's about the furthest thing from fair chase that there is, and that's how probably 80-90% of hunters in AL kill deer. In my view, set a bag limit then let people go hunt - if that means the guy is stalk hunting with a thermal monocular, I don't care - he only gets his 1 buck 2 doe. Using corn? Same thing. Big greenfield with a high powered rifle and scope with 20 deer in the field? Still 1 buck 2 doe. 25 cellular cameras... same thing - you get the picture.

And for the record I don't have any of the above (other than the rifle) and do most of my hunting on WMAs. I've sat one field/greenfield the last 5 years and was bored out of my mind. Fair chase is all relative. Somewhere there's a guy that deer hunts with a stone spear and traditional stone arrowhead bow who cringes at even the most hardcore compound bow hunter.

The two exceptions I have to that are dog hunting (because dogs run onto neighboring landowner property) and night hunting (because it's outside of legal hunting hours, and I don't love the idea of gunshots going off all night).

You don't have to shorten the season, just put a cap on the number of does per person. In GA it's 2 bucks and 10 does, granted they have better genetics than us for whatever reason but something seems to be working for them.

Remember kids...

Matt Brock, Wildlife Biologist.

CNC, Not Wildlife Biologist.

Then make a graph with his 64 color Crayola set.

CNC works the night shift at the Holiday Inn. Sleeps in the back. That's the situation. He's got a dead horse out back by the dumpster and dead stick propped up beside it.

I’d recommend that everyone interested in this topic listen to the southern U podcast episode 5. Really good in depth info about deer density.

Georgia has a different type wildlife management structure and evidently a different type of hunter than the majority of Alabama. Why, because they have a significantly better age structure within their herd and it is by design. 2 bucks per year, one of which must have at least 4 points on one side and a 15" outside spread. That 15" outside spread reg, all by itself, would save 50% of the bucks killed in AL every year. They have 9 counties within the state that are considered trophy managed and county wide in those 9 counties, no bucks, zero none, zilch, can be taken possessing less than 4 points on one side and a 15" outside spread. 4 counties do not allow any firearms hunting at all. State is divided into 5 management sections for doe harvest. Doe days by section are as follows: 8, 13, 32, 85, 85. You're allowed a maximum of 10 does per year, so in total, you are allowed 12 deer period. They are also more serious about enforcement and fines. If you are caught hunting over bait on public land or anywhere where baiting is prohibited, the fine is $5000 and/or up to 12 months in jail. Heck you could probably shoot a GW in AL and not get that. It's all about attention to detail, enforcement and doing what is best for the wildlife resource and the people using it. I'll also mention that baiting is allowed on private land and there is no baiting permit BS. Hogs can be hunted at night, with a light, year round and there is no night hunting permit BS.

In short, GA is waaaaaay better managed than AL and the hunters over there follow the regs a whole lot better than the hunters in AL. Most likely because there are real fines and real penalties for breaking the law over there. Whereas AL hunting regs remind me of Joe Biden's catch an release border policy. Break and game law in AL and you'll be fined, maybe a couple hundred bucks and court cost, and you can go straight back to breaking the law and doing whatever you were doing that got you busted. And........that's only if you actually get caught by our severely understaffed wardens that are being asked to patrol entire counties and sometimes multiple counties here in AL. Bama's game and fish management department (not the wardens, the management. I've never met a what I would consider to be a bad GW in Bama that didnt take their job seriously) and the CAB are both really nothing more than a joke.

Poor horsey .

What he really likes Is to beat his chest and listen to himself talk.🤦‍♂️

This combined with a tighter doe limit (zone dependent) would completely change improve AL hunting.

Make all the rules you want, without enforcement nothing will change. Only the honest hunters will follow the regs.

So you couldn't kill a "big 6" that everyone wants? And spread ain't nothing but air, air is everywhere.

Bullock Co has already added another 6% onto the doe harvest in just the last 2 1/2 days......The doe numbers in Bullock is likely gonna end up 30-35% over anything in the last 4 years.....That's roughly an additional 600-700 does being taken out across the county

I am short a deer and we in rut but season almost out. I gav away one of my deer w confidence i would kill another buck. Doe gonna b n danger starting next week - almost done and looks like more rain next week and rain tomorrow - maybe only 3-4 more hunt-able days and maybe not that. Doe fixing to be in lot of danger come monday r tuesday

What about that 6.5 yr old 20” spike?

We will never have what the upper Midwest has. Those trips to WI took the wind right out of my QDM big dreams back home. Look and smelling that soils as all harvest a needed.

It’s like this. I rarely and I mean rarely saw a 1.5 yr old or 2.5 yr old that wasn’t an 8 point. Saw only (1) 1.5 yr old spike in several years. As told they were very rare. We weren’t even in the best part for deer in WI either. Didn’t see crappy racks traveling thru Missouri and Illinois.

Opposite experience here. Rare to see the racked 1.5 yr old and see way more 4-6 pt 2.5 yr olds than 8 or more 2.5 yr olds.

Not saying Alabama is like that everywhere because there are pockets of great deer. Also by getting the deer ratio and carrying capacity in check will definitely help. But no amount of regulations will make us like the Midwest.

Bullock Co has added another 4% onto doe harvest just since I posted yesterday……That’s 10% in less than 4 days…..Whackin and stackin

The difference is “yuuuuuuge” *donald trump voice*

Sorry, I’m way behind on this thread.