Why ya wanta bring all that fancy study and numbers stuff up in here? Everyone knows from Texas to the Northern reaches of Canada there's 150s behind every other tree and BnC bucks behind the rest. We can have them too.

interesting read. I've heard before that a high amount of spring rain fall positively affects antler growth and this article seems to reinforce that, too. Maybe this year there will be some better deer seen/killed with all the spring rain we've had this year.

Yeah Lanier split up and sold it off... I also agree with most of what you say, 150's are a small percentage based on total population of a track of land anywhere, even Lee and Tiffany's place in Iowa. But it is also more common in places in Alabama than people realize. Those places are never mentioned on the internet specifically for that reason. I personally know of a 170"+, a couple of 160's and multiple 150's just from around the Portland Area that never made mention out of a group of maybe 10 people... And I am definitely sure there are a LOT of deer killed in that area that I don't know about...

But overall, I agree, 150 is a damn hard number to get to but believe it or not, there are quite a few places that pump em out every year that are never mentioned to the public...

There are some great differences to what most people on this board believe and what is actually true. Your not going to "hear" about the places in this state that do grow, hold, and harvest deer in the 150" + category. Plain and Simple Fact. I personally believe the reason most average hunters only see and believe that 120" deer are about the normal is because of the style of hunting they are doing. When you are sitting on a greenfield in December for 2-3 hours, even in a top tier place, a 120" deer is about the biggest you can expect and therefor you believe that is about the biggest on the property. When you work on one of these "top tier" places, you obviously are there year round and see WAY more than the weekend hunter/owner/guest, etc. Naturally, the biggest deer are typically going to be killed during the very early gun season or during the rut. The biggest deer were always seen feeding on soy bean leaves during the summer. When you can sit on a bean field in August/Septemer during the evening and watch NUMEROUS deer that would make your jaw absolutely drop and you would swear you were in the Midwest, then you know what size deer you actually have. Camera and 200# feeder locations of 25+ run the full off season would RARELY catch the "big" deer. Why? Great question, Leary? Maybe, but the feeders have been there for over a decade. The exact same buck would literally grow up on camera year after year, but somewhere around 4.5-5.5 years old he would vanish. Some things will never change on any property, I don't care whether it is "top tier" with literally hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on anything and everything or a 100 acre tract with natural browse. Pressure effects deer more than anything, especially gun shots. A bow hunting only area will CONSISTENTLY shoot more/larger bucks over X amount of time and the hardest of all to really get most hunters to understand - a true "giant" 99% of the time is NOT going to walk out on a greenfield to feed during the daylight. There are more places in this state than you will ever know where 150" deer are killed every year and numerous deer that size as well. How many that size every year?, way too many variables come into play. A true, "top tier" place that is highly manged can/will/ and do watch 150" deer throughout the year and know that those can be considered "dinks" as to what is really out there. I personally don't think a 150" deer is REMOTELY a "dink", but if you have hunted a piece of property for years and have shot 6-8 that size then most want something larger.

170s That's all? I know of one that hit the 200" mark

Honestly, anything that comes out of there doesn't surprise me anymore... I have heard mention of two different 200" non typicals coming from there. I have never personally seen either but I did see some pictures of one from a guy that said he held the rack in his hands...

Before any of that land was cut, I would almost go out on a limb and say that was probably the best overall piece of hunting property in the state (Road System, genetics, land layout, soil, location, deer numbers, holding capacity) for a few years. Of course it was bow hunted only for well over 10 years not including the Super Hunt when it was held there, so that helped along with deep pockets...

You didn't think a 13 year, factual study from properties that are some of the best in the world would actually deter some from thinking they have better here in Alabama, did you?

In reply to you Bill, if I had to pick South Texas or Portland Landing 10 years ago, I would take Portland Landing all day and twice on Sunday but that's just me...

I've hunted south Alabama, south of a Montgomery Co line, for close to 45 years and I can think of maybe two glimpses of bucks that might have scored over 140". If I was told I could only shoot 140+ bucks I would just stay at the house and watch football.

We had several thousand acres of USX land near Leeds Al from 96-05 and killed five bucks over 140, three of them over 150. And several really heavy 130+ bucks. I didn't do anything special except lay off the damn trigger. No extra food planted, some minerals, no genetics added, nada. Place had a mix of genetics as expressed in the bucks. Some seven year olds scored just over 100, some well over 150.

I know you can grow 150+ bucks in Al.

I think you're right....

Well of course there are. I've hunted some places like that but they are still a rarity.

You can improve the herd through various management techniques but it seems that some areas just on average produce bigger bucks. The Portland Landing/ Millers Ferry is one of those areas, Fitzpatrick, etc. I wonder why Portland Landing seems to harvest more "trophy" deer than say White Hall, Hayneville, or Lowndesboro. Is it genetics or just more intense management practices in a given area, or just better soil? All of the 4 areas are in the "blackbelt", but one seems to out perform the others on a regular basis.

I agree with you 1000%, I have wondered for years why Fitzpatrick has always turned out great deer on a consistent basis. I have almost narrowed it down to a major contributor being of large landowner cooperatives carrying out the same strict management practices. If you look at Portland when MO controlled the whole 15k acres, it was strictly bow hunted for YEARS and INTENSELY managed. Portland is the perfect laid out tract of land to grow big deer and falls in to that cooperative type land without it actually being a "Cooperative". With the PL tract, you didn't have to worry about neighbors or their practices because the river was your North and West border, the road system didn't really allow for a major poaching problem and the timber was majorly virgin hardwoods that actually produced because of the BB soil. Add that to an almost unlimited bank account and Portland landing was born...

The Fitzpatrick area is more of a cooperative, I believe Chuck Pickett lead the charge in that area over there. He got with several other large land owners and I think the results have spoken for themselves. You definitely have to have all of the stars aligned for everything to come together but it happens a lot more frequent than a lot of us know about and can be done in Alabama, it just takes that thing that a lot of hunters don't have or want to put in, trigger restraint within a large area and hard work.

Those places that we have mentioned, Portland, Miller's Ferry, Safford, Fitzpatrick are some of my favorite things hunting wise to talk about...

I saw a palmated buck last year on the side of I-20 just before you get to Bass Pro that was probably pushing 150. That's got to be close to the property you are talking about.

same property, I had all that where the new mall is and Bass Pro all the way to Grants Mill Rd. and up to Markeeta.

I guess it depends on how often you have to kill a 150+ buck to say a place regularly produces those size bucks. Say you have 5,000+ acres and it produces one once every 4-5 years to me that is not a regular basis. Now if that piece of property produces 3-4 150+ every year I would say that would be a regular basis, and give the people hunting there a legitimate chance a killing one on a regular basis and would be a rare place in Alabama. I hunt a large piece of land that practices as much or more trigger restraint than anywhere I have ever hunted it is not in the black belt or river bottom soil which would help for sure but a very high percentage of bucks killed are mature bucks and 150+ do happen but not at a rate that I would call a regular basis. I would guess the average mature buck killed is somewhere around 120" which I would make a small wager is about what the average mature buck would score most anywhere in Alabama.