Not long!! As soon as we humans start moving around in their areas and leaving our stink all over. They hear the atvs and trucks at the same time and going to the same place everyday in their area. I tell my guys the reason we can’t pattern deer here is because the deer already have us patterned. I’d say within a couple days. When our place is left alone for a few weeks,hunting is great the first couple days back. Goes to crap starting on day 3-4. Our biggest problem is our camp is in the dead center of our property. The deer know every move we make. It’s their world and we’re just an inconvenience to them for half the year.

Not really…i just like shootin chit with a bow..an i know how far im willin to go..i wonder about everbody else’s dedication…just how bad do you want it..cause seems to me..rich folks been gettin what they want for awhile..id like to givem what everbody needs…a level playin field..yeh..you could still go buy you 5000 acres..an be a ritch biotch..but youd still have to get within 30-40 yards..and kill..good luck

I went to Columbus Ohio one fall to visit a family member, we stayed 3-4 days. We rode to a WMA and there was a huge crop field like 300-400 acres (huge to me), with a tiny little 40 acre plot of woods right in the middle of the field. Right at dark 13 racked bucks came out of that 40 acres into the soybean field. Then right down the road there was a major creek/river that had sparse woods around it, surrounded by crop field again. Bow hunting that wma would be like shooting fish in a barrel to me. Just no where for the deer to hide. There was a cemetery that bordered the wma and it was grown up behind it. I told my family member to hunt right behind the cemetery and he ended up killing a good 10 there. I suppose turkeys would be the same way, easy to kill with lack of cover.
Can’t be as many deer per acre up there though, not enough woods.

Exactly.......I think a lot of folks would like the split gun season.....they just dont know it yet.

You can split the gun season now.

It's just up to you...

Sure....north Alabama hunters could just sit at home during Feb too but they dont. Its like I said before…..if everything is about voluntary restraint then we might as well not even have season dates and just let every individual make their own rules. That argument just doesn’t hold water after a while.

I agree with you though AU338MAG about adjusting doe days……The simplest thing would probably be to just expand zone C to include more counties and cut the days back from 23 to maybe 14…..Most of the counties that need it are north of Montgomery anyways.

I've not hunted deer one day in Alabama this season.

Yet

A few years ago I was in a south Alabama club with my brother. He would hunt every weekend from opening day through Christmas.

By the time the rut rolled in January he had hunted all of his best spots to death and the deer had him patterned.

Again, HUNTERS are their own worst enemy.

I agree but you cant just blame everything on the hunters….We already know through the economic law called the tragedy of the commons that humans will eventually exploit a limited shared resource when there are no regulations preventing them from doing so…..I don’t know why we would expect the limited shared resource of deer to be any different. The regulations that we have in place are just as much to blame for the outcomes we see as are the hunters….. Its real easy just to point the fingers at the hunters though and make them the scapegoats

CNC, what problem are you attempting to solve? If it's a population thing, manipulating doe harvests (more or less) can fix that. If it's to create larger bucks, that's a personal thing and not the states job.

We have a few problems that have been exacerbated by corn that need addressing unless we just want to have our regulations set to as crappy as they could be from a management standpoint…..I don’t think we should try and trophy manage but I also don’t think we should manage on the far other end of the spectrum either…..

The biggest issue is an over harvesting of bucks along with a further degrading of populations in what are already the worst areas. You also have a lot of north Alabama hunters who are unhappy with the Feb extension and readjusting those dates would be one step to helping alleviate some of these issues we’ve created. I agree with you that its not the states job to trophy manage but its also not their job to run it in the ground to make corn money. There needs to be some kind of balance that is struck.

And no matter what you do to limit harvests Alabama will never be known as the land of the giants. Never.

People don’t want giants. They just want the opportunity to hunt mature deer, and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult in places. Everybody knows we aren’t going to rival the Midwest in total number of huge bucks.

Exactly…….our management objectives right now seems to be to try and squeeze out every dollar the resource can produce while pushing quality to the lowest limits that’ll be tolerated…..We do a good job of conditioning folks to be ok with mediocracy so that they don’t expect much

So now we need rules for those that wanna hunt mature deer? What about those that don’t ? We just say piss on them? Everybody else’s desires are more important than theirs apparently. Personally, I try to hunt mature deer. Have no issues with it. It’s what I try to do. I don’t expect everyone else to want exactly what I want nor do I want to make laws that would make hunting less enjoyable for those that don’t care to hunt mature deer. I don’t like the laws we have now. The last thing I want is more laws that prohibit me from doing what I enjoy. People are always screwing up good things. Deer hunting shouldn’t be any different I guess.

We should have rules that try to promote at least a somewhat reasonably balanced herd and one that is at least somewhere in the ballpark of our potential from a population standpoint…..not ones like we have now that results in piss poor herd dynamics across large swaths of the state and degrading populations in areas that already sucked……Do you think its ok for the state to change rules that degrade the resource like legalizing baiting but not ok for the hunters to speak up and expect better? Is everyone just supposed to take that one on the chin? Kinda seems like it’s a one way street when it comes to change……

Dadgum I agree with CNC almost 100% on that!😳👍

From a biological perspective, to me, it’s all about promoting a balanced and healthy deer herd so the beneficiaries (hunters) can choose how to hunt that best suits them. Right now, there’s an overharvest of bucks and high grading taking place and it’s going to continue to get worse until a lot of ppl lose interest.

X 1000. Stupid is being nice .