Doe Days

Back around the early to mid 90’s my family went from hunting only in Jackson Co…. to traveling south and venturing into counties like Tallapoosa, Russell, Pike…..It was always fun to pack up the campers and head south. Around that same time period the state was beginning to allow more liberal doe harvesting. You had something like a 7 day doe season in North Alabama where we hunted……and around 15-20 days in the southern counties.

I think we should have left doe harvesting alone right about there. We could have adjusted the days around a little more for certain areas and slightly tweaked it here and there as time went on..... but we royally messed up when we opened up a free for all doe harvest across most of the state… The worst thing that it did was it changed the hunters’ mentalities. We could try to implement those same exact doe days across the state now and you would likely receive a lot of pushback…..”I need to be able to shoot does!!!”….some would say…..while others would talk about restricting opportunity and this and that….maybe rightfully so……but the point is that back when we had doe days folks were just happy to have them……now they feel like the same thing would be taking something away from them.

I’d be in on doe days for sure!

I agree. And I think some would argue that this prevents people from shooting spikes, 4 pointers, etc. because someone would just shoot a doe instead for meat, etc.

But that is not my experience. What the current system has produced is an entire generation of hunters that have no trigger control. They just blast deer. Does, spikes... doesn't matter. Everything is legal in their eyes with essentially no limit unless they tell on themselves. And that is where the game check push back comes from. That's asking people to tell on themselves. Not everyone obviously because many of us do follow the rules but a lot of hunters in this state disregard them completely.

Anybody remember state issued "Doe Tags" program, we had 2000 acres in S Montgomery county and was issued 100 tags per year. We were in the program for 4yrs. Looking back very bad program. We need to go back to special doe days.

At 2000 acres, you should have had about 10-15 doe tags. Someone made a huge mistake.

Oh no. That's really what it would be. Tons of deer there.

We were on the conservation program. We had 3000 acres. Our doe tags were based on the weight and age of what we killed. We pulled all jaw bones and sent them in to Montgomery. They gave us doe tags accordingly. One of our members was a state biologist. After the state went to 2 does a day,there was no point . The biologist limited us to 15 even in years when we got more. The year we went to 2 does a day, it sounded like we were in a war zone. The club next to us killed over 100 does a year for a few years. They had 25 members and were required to 4 or pay fines. We had a huge population until the ag fields were planted in long leaf and hurricane Ivan in 04. took about 99% of our timber. The hunting in our part of Conecuh county will never be the same

Ah, the fabled DMAP program. Where, in most cases, the "biologist" would show up once before deer season, and give you a handful of tags. If you asked for more, he'd give you another handful, and see you again next year, just before deer season.

Back in those days, you only had to wear hunter orange during doe days and not the rest of the season. Also most of us were dog hunting in those days.

I think "most of us" were not dog hunting, back then.
Some of us have always hated dog hunting, from the time we was toddlers.
And I still don't wear no stupid orange of any kind.

You sound like my Grandpa he kept an orange hat cover rolled up in his back pocket just Incase the game warden ever pulled up on him but he hated wearing orange, he thought the deer would spot him if he had any on

The deer absolutely WILL spot you. No question about it.
They can't tell you it's orange, but they can dang sure see it clearly.
Plus, when your neighbors spot that orange dot, he's gonna raise his scoped rifle and put the cross hairs on your head, just to see what you're up to.

Is there any hunting law you follow?

He doesn’t hunt over corn haha

I follow all the laws.
The orange rule is not law, it's a regulation.

We need three different time lengths of doe days falling around Christmas vacation……..21 days……..10 days………and 3 days……Everyone falls in under one of the three…..district biologists and staff make the call for the counties in their districts…….Why can’t it be that simple?? Don’t you think our biologists have their ear to the ground well enough to choose between A, B, or C? without all the fuss?? How did we decide on doe days back in the 90's before game check??

I remember when it was 12/26-12/31. We would put the hammer down those 6 days and fill the freezers. Horns the rest of the season.

Christmas is a bad time for doe days in our area cause that’s prime rut time don’t need to shoot does then. Id say first 10-15 days of season.

So you are saying that only people who can take off x-day to y-day should be allowed to shoot does. I'm self-employed and my work schedule is full up to New Years and my wife and I travel afterward because that is the only time we are both dead pay wise. Most of the guys in my club are industrial shift workers. They are either on or off and it takes an act of congress to keep their vacations even when they've scheduled them in advance.

Back in the 80's and early 90's my family had a deer cooler in Vincent. That cooler was a mad house for about 2 weeks during doe days. we would have deer stacked every where ! I got paid $5 for every deer I skinned. I thought I was rich lol. I think we should go back to doe days but that will never happen.

THIS. I liked it then, would like it now. Don't care if it was done by zones/ days/etc. since we CAN shoot a doe anytime now.... no one does.

I don't understand why some people think they should be able to shoot all the does they want to. Not long ago a guy on here wanted some information about our club and one of the main things he wanted to know was how many does that he could kill. We have worked for about 18 years on our club land to try and improve the deer quality and numbers, I dang sure don't want a meat hunter turned loose in there.

Yes…..Doe days worked just fine the first time we did it. Folks found a way to go on those hunts. Those were even special hunts for most folks. This is part of what I’m talking about with the mentality change. Does went from being sacred to being target practice. We’ve went from being happy with a conservative doe harvesting period that favored the resource….. to folks thinking that we are all now entitled to a season long free for all that favors the hunter’s convenience and deep freeze.

We should have never even went there with doe harvesting. If we could go back in time now to the early 90’s and foresee the real impact that coyotes were about to have on the deer populations……we would have been much more conservative with any changes made......If we would have left doe days in place and just tweaked them a little….. then the pendulum would have likely settled out a little smoother and we would likely be in a different place today.

It’s really a hard topic to decide on. For one I don’t won’t to tell anyone what they can and can’t shoot, or what days they can shoot certain deer. But I also would like to have a good deer herd in the future.

Like you said though it’s really a county by county thing. In the area of Macon county where me and CNC hunt I think we could get away with shooting more does. We shot 4 does and 3 bucks off our 300 acres this season and I don’t think it will hurt the population much considering I would get 8-10 does on camera at once and would have people on opposite ends of the property see groups of 4-6 does during the same time frame. I also had a total of 16 racked bucks on camera + no telling how many spikes.

I think the best thing would be a tag system maybe 4-bucks 4-does with the ability to draw extra tags for private property only.

I don’t know how it would be set up I’m just throwing out my thoughts on the subject. I enjoy reading every body’s input

Doe Days would definitely help to reduce the near constant pressure that is placed on the herd now.

That is the number one thing that doe days did was drive the deer to a nocturnal pattern. We have the same land owners and pressure we have always had in our area for 40 years. The nocturnal pattern was vastly more evident after the season long doe season was introduced.

Are we talking rifle only? Y'all still want season long bow harvest of does?

Was there less pressure in the 90's when you could shoot a buck a day. If there was I didn't notice. I remember seeing lots of does and a few spike and basket racked 2 year olds. I don't think I saw a buck over 4 years old with my own eyes until about 2002. Did we only hunt on doe days because I recall differently. I think we may be conflating the allowance to take does at, and this is important, the hunter's discretion, with the abuse of the regulation by those individuals who treat the doe-a-day rule as a personal challenge. It is the same flawed concept as punishing law abiding firearms owners because some asshole misused a firearm on the other side of the country. Doe days didn't keep poachers and night hunters from killing does at will in the 80's and 90's anymore than it will in the future.
If you want to see a change of value, we'd be better served by adapting the culture surrounding hunting as a whole. As long as some people see numbers like they are scoring points, the abuse of the resource we all share won't end.

Yes.....still kill does with a bow season long if you want to.

The pressure is in hammering does that use to come out in day light regulatly. Also doe days were prior to the rut in many areas so you had does that would be regularly seen during the rut with bucks chasing / following. I am for the reinstitution of doe days. ABSOLUTELY against a statewide doe limit as that is nothing but a goal!!! Anybody need to shoot more does then they can get tags via a biologist such that the land is managed as necessary

Doe days or dmap

We need 0 days here. We didn't need 5 when they went to 2x day every day. IIRC we went from 3 doe days one year to 2x per day, kill every damn one of them the next.

40 yrs ago in Tennessee killing any does was considered a sin

Why not limit the does like the bucks? 3 per season or so.

3 per person is way to many in some areas. Pehaps doe days plus DMAP and 1 doe tag for youth hunters.

A doe is just as dead if shot with a rifle or a bow. There are plenty of greedy ass bow hunters.

It’s a lot harder to overharvest with a bow though…..You’re just not gonna get nearly as many shot opportunities…….. and folks will likely only bow hunt during gun season if they’re on a good piece of property that is likely to give them a shot on one. That’s what I’ve seen through tracking for folks anyways. There are folks out there bow hunting during gun season but it’s pretty much only in the most heavily populated areas. The less opportunities someone has on deer….the less likely they are to take the gun out of their hand and use a bow.

I agree with what you just said. The only places I've seen that people truly bowhunt all year has more deer than you can imagine.

Not really. I can kill does by the pickup load in bow season. I don't because they almost always have small fawns with them at that time, but it isn't at all difficult to put five or six younger does on the ground with a bow in the early season. Should I then put the hammer on them again during special doe season? What constitutes "over-harvest". And why should it matter precisely when in the season the does get killed.
I'd much rather go back to tags, but keep the flexibility to only take the doe I want when the opportunity presents itself, over the short special season where it's either shoot what shows today or none at all.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject matter by any means, but you're definitely correct about the does being target practice. I have hunted with folks who don't have a problem blowing down more than one at a time. And honestly I get it. We don't wake up that early to teach the deer lessons in humanity, but come on.

Back when there was a 3 day doe season it was still frowned upon to kill a doe,where I hunted. I killed 1 on a hunt and the older guys wouldn't have nothing to do with it. Usually we would gather at the skining shed and do our thing but that day they told me to take her to the creek and skin her. They were set in third ways that killing a doe was evil. To this day I may shoot one every 5 years, I just believe they are there to attract bucks. Ask yourself would you rater kill a doe or a spike. I say neither but if you have to limit it to 3 per year JMO

Shooting does has just never been on top of my agenda. Having shot 2 during my lifetime I just don't do it I am just not a big venison eating machine like some. Kill moma you kill all the deer if you are not careful. Shoot most of the bucks, but keep a few extra doe's you will always have meat if you really like venison. Having hunted around areas always with enough hunters they have always kept doe numbers down and deer numbers down period, but were smart enough to know bucks can't get pregnant, so they had better lay off does until next year. Remember this and you should always have deer to eat when every one else complains about no deer.
Now if it was up to me the bucks would be let go to age 5 or 130" unless cull bucks, but that never seems to happen on the tracts I have hunted.