#1 I'd love to know where you are describing. Our zone C is awful dang accurate. Obviously small pockets exist in the zone but we can't manage for small pockets. That's why we have some options.

#2 Get on DMAP and you can harvest those does...

Stand in line in any Wal-Mart in Arkansas the night before duck season opens and you will see it. The cashier does not understand the importance of the task. Seen it in Alabama also. I buy my licenses online now.

I have purchased HIP permits in Walmart and other stores for years and never have seen this. It's fraud.

Doesn't matter what the cashier thinks. The person purchasing the HIP is supposed to answer the questions. She doesn't have chit to do with it other than ringing it up.

Sorry... in the quotes, it said, "estimated deer population currently stands at 25 deer per square mile of forested acreage on average"

Forested areas may make a difference NightHunter?

I agree there will be areas with low deer numbers. My wife is from DeKalb co, and deer numbers there in places are very low, but then you have a significant acreage in the blackbelt areas that are slammed.

I know what you were saying but some folks do not truly believe there are areas in AL that suffer from extremely low (no) deer numbers. I hear it continually that zone c is wrong, but it isn't. May have a few small pockets with high numbers but overall they are below average.

Well, guess I have been guilty of fraud. The times I did it, I was not alone.

My point was that if the person recording the information sees it as useless then little effort is made to do it correctly. Seems that many view Gamecheck in that light.

I was reading along this thread and when I got to this exchange I thought of a question. How confident are you that you know "close" to how many deer are alive at any point in time in a zone/territory? I mean, I'm thinking that the State is broken down into zones, and each zone has a biologist (or multiple) and also certain other types of DCNR employees overseeing it. And a typical zone would be what, maybe 4 or 5 counties? How can we know if we're even sorta close on our guesstimates of herd size? You always hear things like "Alabama's deer population is 1.75 million". Where does that come from and how do we know we're even close?

This I agree with, on both counts.

As for HIP, one thing I've always thought is idiotic is if I buy a license to hunt in Bama I have to do a HIP deal here. Arkansas, another one. Kansas, another one. Whatever state, or so I've always been told even after showing my existing HIP decal.

Which means the numbers may be skewed badly or, as you indicated, just flat out wrong if the hunter doesn't seen any value or trust in it.

I've always wondered about this for Ohio, which does it county by county. Those counties may be in small clusters but it looks remarkably time-consuming and mind-boggling. I think some other states do the same.

I remember watching a show, a few years ago, when the narrator said, "there's 700,000 rabbits in brushy tail county". (I don't actually remember where it was)
But I remember thinking, who the hell is counting rabbits, and wouldn't that job suck?

Nighthunter is absolutely correct and so is the data collected for zone c, AND it is even more precise due to the changes made this year. ZONE C is completely VOID of deer in places..and the numbers here for the most part are a joke. Ive lived in marshall county my whole life and theres never been many deer for the most part. I lived in one of the places that actually had a few but it seems like i find less and less sign of them tear after year. Pretty much....you move to far in one direction from the tenessee river and your gonna get to the point where it is a big deal just to see one. If you see orange on the map...and it says zone c...populations that are HUNTABLE are very few...theres several small pockets that there is no way id shoot any deer..at all....because thats how few there are...but they are still hunted by our indigenous morons...when i make jokes about it..im really tellin the truth. Im just happy people like nighthunter and mbrock are workin for us zone c folks and trying to help cause we got it pretty ruff up here. Thats why i have to drive no less than an hour in most cases to hunt anything...it really is that awful...and depressing. There are some places doin pretty good....but i can bout dang near guarantee they are never in the realm of certainty and if anything much changed in the environment that they are in theyd struggle and dwindle down to nothing just like the rest. Just necause you have them now doesnt mean theyll be there in 10 years..you screw with habitat to much and continue to kill unrestricted and see what happens.

"There are fewer than 100 tigers living in the wild"

Really??? How in the cornbread heck do we know? Tigers literally live on multiple continents, millions of square miles of uninhabited land.

It seems some very good information could be gained from hunting clubs. We have about 6,000 acres and keep good notes about harvest. A carefully worded survey for clubs might be better than GC.

I've always assumed the guesstimate of total population was just a matter of statistics based on guesstimated harvests.

Just a thought, How close would the numbers ,if we looked att the W.M.A.'s .If you have 45 hunting days, total permits were 4000, Deer harvest was 250,some are more some are less.now if the hunting clubs have a harvest total ,could we get a close or better count. some zones are so low in numbers. you may not get a deer. like the above # 6-8 percent chance in 44 days. what say you ,