I was reading thru new alabama hunting regs and maybe I am missing something. But it appears that private landowners no longer can get night hunting permits for coyotes specifically. Last year I thought alabama was allowing night hunting on private property with permit from local warden to hunt both coyotes and hogs essentially outside deer/turkey season. But this year I no longer am seeing any reference to that rule. Only thing I can find is private landowners can apply for older depredation permit specifically only for feral hog control to allow for night hunting. So can we or can we not night hunt for coyotes in Alabama on private property outside of deer season with a landowner permit? If not guess I’ll just keep hunting them at night in Florida and killing them during daylight hours in Alabama

But if the rule was changed again for private land it brings up how stupid the law is to not allow night hunting for coyotes and hogs. I understand that night hunting deer poaching assholes can use it as cover for there illicit activity. But they will break the law regardless and their are ways to distinguish the two groups. I.e. if allowing for night Hunting for coyotes the rules could he changed to require only for use of certain firearm calibers like .22 mag, .17 wsm, .17 hmr, .204 Ruger etc and make it so that those calibers were not allowed for deer hunting. Yes that would mean changing the rule of any center fire being legal for deer hunting. But I do not think the trade off would be that horrible to say you couldn’t use a anything under a .223 for deer hunting. So that guys could use calibers under .223 for killing fawn eating yotes night or day. Plus by doing so they could open up WMA public land to year round or least winter or summer coyote hunting to include night hunting. So that someone caught out at night with a .17 wsm and thermal could be distinguished from the deer poachers with .243 and thermal. Obviously poachers could still use more open rules for coyotes to there advantage. But poachers will be poachers regardless and I hunt several Midwest states and some allow year round coyote hunting including night hunting on private and allow it on public land to include night hunting during fall& winter without it causing horrible increases in poaching numbers.

For this line of thinking... maybe restrict night hunting for coyotes to rimfire only... thus leaving the 'centerfire with mushrooming ammo' rule to stand unchanged for deer hunting?

It definitely could could be made so that only rimfire cartridges were allowed for night coyote hunting. Which also would allow for pro night coyote hunting proponents to stay away from ruffling any feathers within the powerful deer hunting sector and also stay clear of the hog hunting subject. Which based on recent statements by several state wildlife officials and biologists. Is a touchy subject because states are starting to try and discourage more open hog hunting rules to therefore discourage increased levels of intentional hog releases.

You really think restricting firearms to rimfire only would stop people from poaching deer? I’ve killed several deer with a .17 HMR and I’ve watched several get killed with a .17 HMR (wasn’t poaching).