"Alabama’s deer hunting regulations have been relatively lax for many years. For decades there was no season limit on the number of deer that a hunter could harvest, only a daily bag limit of one buck per day. It was only in recent years that the state limited hunters to three bucks per years." Wow, just Wow!!!!! Amazing, absolutely amazing how incorrect via agenda this is!! There was one buck per day with limited doe days (i.e. limit on does) with expanding and thriving deer numbers for decades!!!! Then under the brilliance of the DNCR and the "you can't kill enough does" trophy management crowd it became limited bucks (3 for those stupid hunters, yes verbalizing what Chuck is thinking) and 2 does per day for a few years then one doe per day all season and the once expanding and thriving deer herd tanks!!! Then Chuck blames the hunters for not hopping on his bandwagon of FORCED compliance so they can make up more laws, regulations, requirements and threatens the hunters!!! How does he justify his job??????????????

I see several problems here. He keeps bringing up private landowners hunting with no licenses. He is an idiot to think there is going to be 100% compliance on anything. He says they went off a survey but do you know anyone that got one? I didn't but got the one about hogs. Sounds like a democrat to me looking for money.

Perhaps Aldeer members should find out where the Gubernatorial candidates stand on Mr. Sykes and get behind one that has a chance of winning and will give Chucky the heave-ho.

This was my favorite line "“As poor as I am, I’ve hunted out of state and I’ve been tagging deer and taking deer to check stations for more than 20 years,” Sykes said."

Do we need to start a GoFundMe page so poor ole Chuck can feed his family? Saying stuff like this is just another of many examples showing how out of touch Sykes is with the vast majority of hunters. I sincerely believe he thinks that hunting is still a sport for kings and other nobility.

Out of touch and desperate. He wanted GC at all cost, by hook or crook, careful what you wish for.

I laughed at that line too. What a douchebag.

It was said to be "statistically valid" as a certain percentage of the number of licensed hunters. I've had a license for 36 years and never received one. How does that happen? I've never been chosen for jury duty, though, so I guess random is possible in anything.



Some hunters killed one buck (or none) per season. Some killed a bunch because they were egotistical slobs. MOST killed 1.8 or 2.8 bucks or whatever the figure was, and everything evened out. That was the beauty of the buck-a-day system - it all evened out. It was so comically laughable to think about killing 110 bucks a season that no one did it or attempted it, and it gave the landowner or manager or hunter the choice to kill what he believed he needed to kill OR wanted to kill without doing it illegally (with a smaller limit).

Now with a 3-buck limit there's a mentality in a lot of hunters that if they don't kill their three bucks they didn't have a successful season. Some who believe they need or want to kill more on their property have to do it illegally or bring in other people. And many — after generations and decades of not having such heavy-handed regulations, and a director chirping about people being leeches and not paying their fair share (after decades of doing so) — are just ignoring them and will continue to ignore them.

It's those pesky landowners and those pesky people over 64 and now it's those pesky poor people. He should listen to himself one time. He sounds like Hillary.

My guess is he already has the CAB ready and this article was just to go ahead and tee up his proposal to screw the average Alabamian again. Get ready for the CAB meeting. It's coming whether the populous wants it or not.

I think requiring anyone over age 64 to purchase a license would result in contact with legislators and pretty much that demographic saying "Screw you" pretty heartily.

Danged ol' License Leeches.

By the time of the CAB, the meetings and decisions behind closed doors will already happened. The Board will take over for Sykes and they will shield their puppet. They will take some fairly drastic measures (as ,BhamFred said about Sykes about to get stupid) but the push back will be deflected off Sykes to the Board. Roadblocks will become more frequent with GWs but will only result in bringing the non-hunting public into the fray. By this time next year the divide will be even greater and adherence to their wishes even less. This is getting better than a soap opera!

I got flamed by the Dept heads several years ago, when I voiced my opinion on that elusive survey that no one has ever gotten.

That's nothing new. Been going on for years.
I had a former CAB tell me straight up, the crossbow deal was signed sealed and delivered well before any public meetings.

I doubt that was the only reason.

Am I the only one who knows how to get rid of Sykes? Here you go: I personally saw him pee on a statue of MLK, he said Rosa Parks was ugly, and he shared women with Bill Cosby. That will make world news and Aunt Bea will have to make a move

Does someone still have the CAB notes from the season extension meeting handy that were posted on here about last fall when we were in a heated discussion on this very subject? There's some dandy Chuck quotes in it. I can't find it.

No. Way.

You mean the sudden proposal, question about whether it would be a law enforcment problem, no other discussion or notice it was going to be brought up, and immediate approval by the CAB at that Gulf Shores meeting was decided beforehand?

I heard him say the N word one time!

I think I know where you are headed with this and recall the same things you do. But I don't believe, the way I read it anyway, the Tusc. article is a quote from Sykes on the season extension. What we saw on here several months ago was what he said. Sounds like the writer of the Tusc. article was putting stuff out there he didn't say. But, I could be wrong.

Another thing, he didn't say the part about filling out the harvest on the BOTTOM of a license. He would have pushed the app thingy.

I think it's a certainty, and part of the plan from the beginning.

It sure looked like to me that he planned to reduce the turkey limit, based on all the things he said at the CAB meeting a few years back. I don't think he expected such an uproar from the hunting community and he had to back off. But with GC "proving" that the turkey harvest is only 9000, instead of the 40,000 the hunter survey estimated, he will have more ammunition the next time he brings it to the CAB.

His public comments made me believe that he really wants to reduce the turkey limit and shorten the season, but I don't know if he has such a strong desire to cut back on deer. They have already extended the season on his watch; gonna make him look silly to turn around and cut back now. So I think we see changes in turkey regs soon; maybe a little longer on deer. I could be wrong.

I wonder what the "scientific survey" is that is mentioned in the article? Are they still doing the old hunter survey, or is this something different? I have gotten 2 of the old surveys over the years, but it's scientific integrity was greatly compromised by the director publicly saying it was worthless. Why would anyone take the time to fill it out after that?

I will just go ahead and say it. Corky Pugh may have been right about a few things.