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.