This would give us much better data than GameCheck. For example:

Walker county Hunter: "Saw a 60 lb non-spotted doe, shot it"

Marengo County Hunter: "Saw 22 does and 4 non-shooter young 6 points, none killed"

See how much better this would be than just counting dead deer.

I mean, it "wouldn't be hard" to report right? Easy as pie.

The same deer would be counted over and over. The definition of a shooter is different hunter to hunter.

The data gathered from the survey would be suspect, at best, rendering it useless.

Maybe, but counting live deer would be far superior to counting dead ones. How else can you explain the higher number of deer killed in Walker vs Marengo county currently?

Marengo county probably has 3x the deer (maybe 10x) the numbers of Walker co. And yet state officials will be left with data that Walker co has more.

Because hunters lie

I was working on Ft. Maclellan the last few days and lost count of how many I saw within three hours.

Can you guestamate how many and how many were bucks , how many were does?

Skinny lost count at ten. If he could of got his shoes off he woulda seen 20.....

That place is covered up with deer.

I live almost in sight of Ft McClellan, and drive across it every day...I see TONS of deer in that big cutover by Lowes next to the bypass. Last week I was seeing a nice buck in the big grass field next to Lowes, he was out there every morning. Friday morning there was a roadkill buck on the bypass next to that field.

Everyone is right you couldn't keep up with a correct total because you may see the same see a number of times unless it Werner a unique deer or a shooter. But if nothing happens next year will be awesome. I have two different tracts of land I hunt one is nearly 500 acres and then I have a 40 acre spot. I have to tell everyone there is a ton a twin fawns this year on the 40 acres Im getting a lot of young bucks also have 3 giant bucks comeing in regular ,the does walk by pretty much every day around 9 am and ten minutes before legal time ,but bucks are at 7:30 pm and 4:30 am.onthe 500 acres my deer has vanished because there was no water and the greenfield still are not up as of yesterday. But I HAVE started useing Rinks Boost 73 the acron and sweetcorn man that stuff is amazing been putting out corn on the 500 acres nothing but turkeys ,but when i put the boost 73 out deer are pouring in but the does which I have not seen many in the last 3 years are really marking a comeback every doe has at least twins but they are very tiny,almost look like they have been born recently.I have not seen a shooter yet.But saw a lot of fresh tracks yesterday with buck tracks running behind doe tracks. May have an early rut this year.well good luck.

I'm gonna ask an elementary question to illustrate the problem with the whole thing...

If you personally owned 100 acres, you lived on it, you hunt there and access it simply through your back yard. If you killed a deer on that property, would you report it?

I feel sure that the counties with the higher numbers have some kind of unique situation causing it, but it's not really indicative of deer densities in said county. If you broke our state down into quarters, the 2nd quarter from the bottom holds the most deer and it ain't even close. The quarter above that would be next, then the northern most quarter, and lastly the southern most quarter (the bottom and top might flip-flop). It really is that simple. Again, there may be a county (or even a pocket within a county) in either of those quarters that is an outlier, but overall that's the breakdown. I'm sorry, but Calhoun and Jackson counties do not have more deer than Russell/Lee/Chambers/Barbour/Dallas/Marengo/etc.

The whole key is "people density" there's a zillion folks that live in and hunt in Walker county. The same can NOT be said for Lowndes county. Just simply isn't the case. You've got larger landowners, less hunters, and more deer. Less deer killed = more deer.

Agreed marengo and chaktaw county have far more deer than jackson

https://research.dcnr.alabama.gov/AvidHunter/

You can fill out this avid deer hunter survey if you would like. I've done it the last two seasons for each of my hunts.

The folks hunting Jackson and Lamar must think those areas are overpopulated and trying to reduce the herd cause they sure are putting the does on the ground.

Everybody knows Walker Co is over run with deer.

The only way this would work would be for people to name each deer they see so it couldn't be counted twice but according to some that would be gay.....so

Excellent point!

I actually live on the exact scenario you described and if I ever kill a deer on it I would report it. Of course that is a big if lol