that there are issues with the deer herd? What are you basing it on? Trends on a system that even the people that implemented it doesn't believe in, aren't good enough for me or a lot of people to want further restrictions.

Definitely no issues with the herd where we hunt. I base that on the total number of deer we see while hunting. Some on here would say that’s not the scientific way to judge the number of deer in the area but it works for us. That and the higher weights and amount of fat on the deer tells me we are doing something right.

Just curious but what would be good enough for you to believe it??......Meaning, what proof would you require?

Farmers going to shoot them for destroying their crops if we don’t shoot them . Who am I to believe ?

Also I guess you need to clarify what you consider to be an issue??.....Do you consider bad herd dynamics an issue??.....Are population levels at a fraction of potential capacity an issue?

What would be considered a decent number of acres per deer for average wooded area

60 deer per square mile, or one deer for every 10.66 acres is considered a very high density and habitat will suffer at this density in most of Alabama. A good population number would be one deer per 20-30 acres. I think this is where CNC is coming from. Lets say you're in a good area you have 40 deer per square mile. That's 1 deer for every 16 acres of land. Now lets say you have 100 acres of land that you and your 2 sons hunt behind your house. If you've got a buck to doe ratio of let's say 1:3.5 (probably about right for most of AL). Assuming an even dispersion of deer across surrounding areas, that means your 100 acres of land can sustain and be home for 6.25 deer. Using the B/D ratio, you've got either 4 does and 2 bucks or you've got 5 does and 1 buck. You've got yourself and two teen age boys that hunt the crap out of it because you love to hunt and like to kill deer. Y'all each shoot 2 deer. You just killed everything being sustained on your property and are now impacting all of your surrounding neighbors. The smaller the property, the worse it gets. With 10 acres, you'd clean it out with one single shot. Same with 20acres. What happens when the guy with 3-5 acres kills 5 or 6 a year. The more fragmented the area, the more damage a single or multiple actively harvesting property owners/hunters can do to everyone around him or them.

When Matt says the bucks are being severely overharvested in a lot of areas of the state, here's a way to look at that. State says there were 1,300,000 whitetails in Alabama in 2023 (whether or not this is correct who knows but lets assume it is). Using that same 1:3.5 buck/doe ratio, that means that there "were" 288,000 bucks and 1,012,000 does making up the Alabama deer herd at the beginning of the season. There were 104,986 bucks Chuckie checked just this past season. That doesnt include any of the bucks killed illegally, by cars, poached, natural mortality or killed by the other 40% of hunters not participating in Chuckie check etc. It's reasonable to assume that somewhere around 140,000 bucks (or more) were harvested this past season. That's almost exactly 50% of the total number of bucks you entered the season with, that are now dead and no longer on the landscape, and will not make it to older age classes. Raise your hand if you think that is a good thing and if you think that this sounds like a sustainable long term management plan for the state to continue with.

The above is based strictly on the math and published numbers. Fact is, we really dont know how many deer were in the herd to start with, we dont know how many were actually killed, we dont know what the true buck/doe make-up of the deer herd is in the state. The powers that be are just guessing at all of these numbers, and they certainly are not setting season dates or limits based on anything scientific and for the good of the wildlife because when you apply basic math and statistics to the numbers they put out, and you think about things rationally, it's not a real pretty picture for long term deer hunting in the state.

A lot of people would like to kill bigger deer.

A lot of people think we need to adjust harvest patterns in certain portions of the state in response to increased hunter success associated with corn baiting.

I'm 50/50 but would probably like to see tagging and higher fines so that the state has more accurate numbers to work off of. I already carry my phone and a piece of paper/pencil into the woods to record harvests before I move deer, so tags wouldn't be a big deal to me and I'd like the state to have that data to adjust the harvest recommendations.

Other than the obvious (creating a fixed target for easier kills), what effect does baiting have on an areas herd? How much land is affected and how far will deer travel to eat from a bait pile?

How long has Alabama and Mississippi been in the top 5 states for deer population? I think the numbers are not correct. Because if they were, Alabama wouldn’t be in the top 5 in deer population every single year.

Could we be looking at this wrong? Just because the land is more fragmented in areas really doesn’t matter. A deer doesn’t know property lines and a hunter is only hunting 1-5 acres I would think on average anyways. So the guy that you describe having 100 acres to hunt and he and his family killing 6 deer is no different than those people being in a club and shooting 6 deer out of a 100 acre section of the 3,000 acre club. That happens 10,000 times in 10,000 locations every season and has for 25 years in Alabama.

Erase the property lines in this conversation is what I think we should do. I think we should be looking at the number of hunters. Are they increasing or decreasing?

Naturally it’s increasing. More folks now than ever. And deer guesstimates for population is looking at what the landscape could hold.

Our herd, excuse me, the State's herd where I hunt, is in fine shape from all indications.

You can’t make a blanket statement about the state of AL’s deer herd. It’s very locale specific.

Hence the reason I alway mention “our area” when I talk about numbers and the health of the herd. Same here at home. I’m fortunate to live in an area that has a good population of healthy deer. Do I kill everyone I see? No, I’ve only killed 1 deer here at the house in probably 20yrs. I’m very picky on what I kill here because we hunts many other areas and I’m usually able to kill what I need at these different places.

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I got too many in wilcox county - pile of does - hav not shot there in 2 straight seasons

Clarke is good - will see 3-8 does on a sit and both these areas hav good young bucks on them and wilcox may hav an 8 year old on it next year and clarke has a great 4 year old that was alive week after season and a stud just showed up that use to run with good deer i shot this year. They were never together this year and this new stud use to show up all time - thought he was dead. He will be at least 5 next year. If he only 4 now he could be really good clarke county deer next year

I don't know. I have no doubts that there are spots with issues. Changing seasons statewide or reducing the buck limit statewide is not the answer.

To your other question, I would consider unhealthy or an extremely low amount of deer an issue. Regarding potential capacity, are you seeing areas where the herd is being held back by hunting? I guess I just don't know as many bloodthirsty hunters as some areas seem to have. I figure most areas' populations are more closely related to environmental factors.

If you see a low amount of deer on your place, quit blasting deer. Setting limits 100 miles down the road ain't gonna help crap.