Mbrock is spot on as usual!

Prime example- one 80-acre tract that I hunt has an adjoining landowner that has 1-acre bordering the 80-acre tract. He lives in a house on the 1-acre and has a feeder and a cell cam in his overgrown backyard. It’s now legal for him to shoot deer out his window at the feeder when the cell cam goes off. The feeder is literally 15’ from the property line and unless the deer drops in its tracks, it’s leaving his property before it dies. But…..his setup is technically legal so there isn’t anything that can be done about it.

Before baiting was allowed the chances of him killing a deer, much less a buck, on his 1-acre was extremely slim. Now him and his kids can realistically kill half a dozen bucks off 1-acre and never leave the house.

This is playing out all across the state and seriously impacting the older buck age class.

For those who haven’t experienced it, it’s hard to grasp. I’ve seen long standing, large managed properties go to absolute crap within the last few years. Only reason being bait and technology. it’s severely impacting age structure in some areas. Especially north AL where there’s smaller land parcels and neighborhoods adjoining larger tracts.

I've thought of that too.

I was very much against the buck limit because I thought it would completely change hunting in AL and would accomplish nothing. If we just had to do something to protect yearling bucks, I thought the way to do it was to make the Barbour co AR statewide. On our place, that would protect nearly all the 1.5s and make all the older ones legal. It wouldn't be trophy management at all, and no paperwork would be needed. Of course, it didn't happen.

My perception is that baiting has resulted in a lot more deer being killed. As already mentioned by many, small landowners can bait deer and kill a bunch, when they couldn't before. Repealing this would result in fewer deer being killed if that is the goal. I don't expect it to happen because the dcnr is making money, and that's the point. Deer are just the main product that they sell.

I think the cameras are having the most effect on the biggest bucks. If a deer lives on a big hunting club, every member knows he is there and targets him, and someone is likely to kill him. I don't know if that will hurt the deer herd any, but fewer 3.5s become 4.5s and even fewer live beyond that. On the other hand, those deer are mature so why shouldn't someone harvest them?

I posted years ago that I didn't like what cameras were doing to deer hunting and didn't find many who agreed. I was mainly talking about the fact that they seemed to be bringing out the worst in hunters; don't think that has changed. Getting a lot of pictures of a big buck gives you the sense that he is your deer, and it's naturally disappointing if someone else kills him.

Since there is little chance of repealing baiting, the state had better cut way back on the number of doe days or some places are not going to have any deer. The places with a lot of small landowners need more limits from the state than the places controlled by large landowners and clubs. I am fortunate to be surrounded by a couple of large hunting clubs who do a great job of management. They have more restrictions than the state, so state restrictions don't really matter.

This is the reason I came to this site. Two guys on here wanted help promoting a 3 buck limit.
I haven’t flip flopped. I still contend it worked well in our area. Lots of guys that used to blast 10-15-25 bucks a year actually take their time and be more selective. They can blast 2 of any size but the 3rd has an AR and have 4 on one side. In the past 20 years we’ve seen an increase in age structure harvested.

I’m against an AR since a 3-5 yr old spike could never be legally killed.
Also an AR would high grade the 1.5 yr old 3-4 point although they are rare it’s still a possibility


I’ve always had the 3 gobbler limit in the back of my mind but that’s another subject.

As the number of hunters increase the resource needs better protection to remain sustainable. For some reason hunters are never considered the dominate predator. Still trying to figure that one out, oh well.

Watch out Buckhunter, you say anything negative about that fella hunting every inch of his 1 acre hunting paradise and you will get on the Aldeer’s most hated list quick. Been there myself. There is a 4-ac parcel with a home sitting well into my place my Mom built then sold, unfortunately. I came very close to high fencing it several years ago when I showed up for Thanksgiving and there was a corn patch and a shooting house sitting 100 feet from the guys back porch. Ended up not being a problem but I would do it in a heartbeat if it was. It recently sold and it appears the new owner is non problematic which was a relief but if I got any hint of him hunting seriously over there, there would be a fence. And since my property line is about 10’ from his home it would be about 10’ high of the ugliest fence material I could find. I think rusted out chicken house tin topped with concertina wire might be nice.

Folks will shoot u on here if u move a turkey limit down 🤣🤣

I wish there was a trade off - open turkey early and reduce limit - never happen

I killed 1 buck last year and 2 the year before and one of those i should not hav shot. Where i at - they may not rut till end jan and rut best in feb so i like the extention.

I like the Feb extension too. Honestly, it would do us good to have season through Feb 20th.

[id be tickled pink with a camera ban, a bait ban, and a Feb 20 extension. Even if it meant the season started a month later. I see my best deer Feb 1-10, without cameras or bait.

I own a hair over 200 acres and I don't get wrapped around axle about trying to manage bucks just because of this scenario. I have neighbors that sling corn more than I do and I understand that all the deer that spend time on my place also spend time on 5 or 6 of my neighbor's places. I wouldn't like anyone telling me what I can and cannot kill on my own dirt, so I don't stay up late at night wringing my hands about what my neighbor did that day or what he will do tomorrow.

If my sons and I let a deer walk, it's our choice to do so. If we kill a small buck, its our choice to do so. Our neighbors have those same choices. Not much anyone can do about it.

A large percentage of hunted parcel sizes in AL are way too small to be effectively managed by antler restrictions, unless implemented on a much grander scale than property, or even section lines. If those with adjoining private land want a peace treaty with the neighbors to expand the "antler managed" acres, I suggest developing a HOA-type agreement ... and we know from a recent thread in the general forum how well those are liked.

I push deer cooperatives as much as I can. If everybody can come to some basic agreements on deer management over a given area the results can be phenomenal. You get one guy though that tells everybody to kiss his butt and he’ll do what he wants, then it can all go up in smoke. That’s fine. He can choose to do that. Cooperatives sure do help when multiple properties are involved. Try to make friends, not enemies. Once you’re a butt to a neighbor over a deer it’s hard to undo.

Good idea in theory, for sure. Let those 06's go to talking a few hillsides over during the rut a little more than sounds necessary to the Prez, and fistfights will soon follow!!

With bow or muzzleloader in hand, i'm going to probably bust restrictions myself, esp if it's late in the season. Heck, with the bow, none of my cooperative neighbors will ever know. Wait a minute... if I start to feel guilty, maybe I just bring venison chili to the next agreement meeting and let the co-op eat the evidence. Yeah, that'll work.

It just seems like the easy answer to that is to expose antler restrictions to stop those smaller parcels from killing the young bucks off. Is that not the best way to accomplish that? Of course having a way to enforce that law as well.

Or are you saying the smaller tracts are now killing the older bucks via corn and camera?

Let me start by saying a few things. I’ve always enjoyed and been a proponent of freedom to choose what to do on property I own, within reason. This is specific to hunting regulations. I am in favor of others doing the same thing. I don’t think it’s the states responsibility to legislate or require trophy management statewide. I’m really even torn on whether they should enforce ARs. I’ve been on both sides of the debate, being a state employee for two states, and an avid hunter/manager. I can see both sides to the argument, but I still fall on freedom of choice. Here’s where I get rather sideways with it and have a difficult time reconciling a solution. Trophy hunters through their actions don’t impact anyone else. As a matter of fact they improve hunting opportunities for their neighbors. Anyone other than a trophy hunter does impact the trophy hunter. No one is right or wrong, except they have different objectives. For the people who choose to shoot deer of a certain age class, he’s now entirely dependent on who his neighbors are, whereas he used to not be. Without the technological advances in deer detection, harvest was a totally random event. Deer hunters took deer of all age classes. That allowed deer in every class to recruit to the next class, because harvest was random. So before technology every deer hunter in the woods, from the meat hunter to the trophy hunter could stay happy. There was always a few who made it through. As technology became more advanced, harvest became selective. Now, some would say that’s great!! There’s more people selecting for more mature bucks. Yes indeed they are. BUT, with these cellular cams that don’t require as many intervals to check what deer are frequenting an area, and timed feeders that don’t require regular filling, folks are WAY more successful at killing a buck or bucks they’re after. Most hunters are happy to kill every 3-4 year old they can. And believe me when I tell you they do. There’s places now where fully mature deer are a rarity. They’re not making it through. I’ve seen properties completely eliminate 3+ age classes every season for years now. Some of them have asked me why they aren’t killing any real big deer like they used to. I just laugh inside. It’s simple. You’re killing 90+% of the 3 year olds every single year and how you don’t see the correlation is mind blowing. I think there’s an assumption that they can’t kill all the middle aged bucks because they’re too smart. Well, no they’re not. Every deer in the woods has his pics somewhere, if not on multiple cameras, and somebody is hunting him until he’s dead. With this happening over large areas, the trophy hunters really have nothing to look forward to now. They’re spending a lot of money to kill deer they know they don’t have. Some are letting leases go or selling their property outright. I’m not defending any party here or condemning one either. Just stating the conundrum we’ve put ourselves in by allowing bait and real time cams, plus the added days to get it done. In north AL the added days in February are a disaster. Bucks have survived the rigors of the rut, they become especially vulnerable to bait during post rut recovery, and they are getting hammered late in the season. There’s nowhere I can think of in north AL that needs this additive buck harvest. Some of these bucks(between 5-10%) are casting their antlers after being shot or loaded up. I’ve seen fully shed bucks brought into processors as “does”. So I’ll go back to something I said earlier. I’m not against bait, cameras or long seasons. But I’m dead set against all three together. Are we going to wipe deer out? Heck no. Are we negatively impacting age structure and possibly sex ratios? Absolutely.

Outdoor Life article…

LOL!

LMMFAO

Matt you explained that pretty well. Thanks for your input. Makes a lot of sense.

You can see it and explain it like no other.

I totally agree with you, 100%, on all you have said here.

What do you propose as a solution??

I know you were asking Matt, but it’s all unfixable unless we steepen fines and hire more GW to enforce whatever laws are proposed. Right? Even the small changes you proposed as a long term fix will have to be enforced. I don’t think they can enforce anything enough to make it matter.