Agreed. Shoot em if you got em

Bow season is the hunting season for REAL hunters. Gun season is special for the less capable!!

j/k

Because "bow hunters" wouldn't feel special if they didn't have their own little season to look down on us sorry ass lazy rifle hunting orange wearing hillbillies. Seems theyre still a little butthurt over crossbows being legalized too

And at night? I mean why stop with daylight? Hell let's just hunt all year.

Special seasons for shooting sticks were implemented long before the 3 buck limit.

Few years ago the manufacturers noticed they sold very few muzzleloaders in Alabama....

I guess spear makers forgot to pay their lobby dues. 😆

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is the foundation that fish and wildlife management is built on. It is an easy read and will answer a lot of questions about the role of state wildlife agencies (purpose, authority, funding), who owns wildlife (public trust doctrine), and how wildlife resources get partitioned for user groups to enjoy (seasons, bag limits, methods). A good read for you guys who really want to know the intent behind some of these regs.

https://wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/North-American-model-of-Wildlife-Conservation.pdf

The 7 core principles are:

• Wildlife as Public Trust Resource
• Elimination of Markets for Game
• Allocation of Wildlife by Law
• Wildlife Should Only be Killed for a Legitimate Purpose
• Wildlife is Considered an International Resource
• Science is the Proper Tool for Discharge of Wildlife Policy
• Democracy of Hunting

Wow, it didn't take the elitist long to come out. Using a crossbow, is not bowhunting, Really? These same people use $1500 compounds and they are mountain men! What a freakin load of crap!

If you are disabled is one thing, but just to extend your season is another. No you don't bow hunt because you are too lazy to learn how and have never experienced the thrill of running a stick thru a living creature within 25 yds.

Blumsden, you hit on one of the biggest headaches for state wildlife agencies: conflicting user groups. The agency is bombarded by special interest groups that each insist on their version of hunting, fishing, etc. You've seen it play out. Deer hunting with dogs vs. no dogs. Archery vs. rifle season. Bait vs. no bait. QDM vs. kill whatever. Early vs. extended season. And on and on it goes.

Cause the rules say daylight

So can anyone explain in layman's terms. How does the type of legal weapon used to Harvest a deer play a role in how they are managed? I understand the need for A season and bag limits. That is not the question.

there is no bag limit on does only one a day so like said before if gun season was any longer the deer population would suffer. Alabama already has the longest gun season of any state. bows account for alot less kills so they can be utilized for longer without the same population decline.

This thread is a perfect example of why hunting is less and less popular.

How you figure? I only wish that was true. There's more hunters today than we can tolerate.

I think most would quit hunting after killing their bucks, I quit hunting and start trapping after I kill a buck and a doe most years (this year I will wuit after each kid gets a buck and a doe). There is only so much meat a person needs for a year. I got there woud be exceptions but I imagine they are already hammering the deer now. The new baiting law should really increase the bow shots taken this year I suspect as well. Hopefully by the time gun season rolls around they are corn pile shy.

Think of legal method as simply the state's official list of weapons deemed appropriate to harvest a particular game animal. The WFFD looks at each method in light of its lethal capacity, safety, popularity, and even public perception. Without sensible boundaries, for example, somebody will arm a drone and deer hunt from the couch. Legal method is also a way to manage total # of animals harvested. You would expect 50 rifle hunters to have a higher success rate than 50 bow hunters on the same property. So a wildlife manager can use that as a way to distribute pressure and spread out the harvest at the same time.

Rules also say Oct 15 - Feb 10 it’s legal to hunt with archery equipment. Nov 18 - Feb 10 muzzleloaders and now air guns are legal. Firearm season is Nov 23 - Feb 10. If you want to hunt before Nov 23rd this year, get the appropriate weapon and get after it. Don’t sit at home crying like a liberal snowflake because someone else goes through a little extra work to extend their season. I don’t get ya’lls argument at all. Boils down to good old fashioned jealousy I guess.

About 15 years ago my parents and I had a lease. Because my mom believed like y’all and didn’t think it was “fair” for bow season to begin a month early, I wasn’t allowed to begin hunting the property until the gun opener. I agreed to it mainly for my son’s sake because I wanted him to hunt with his grandparents. After we had the land a couple of years my mom wanted to learn to shoot a bow. So I set her up with a bow and taught her. Once she saw all the work it took to become proficient with a bow, she changed her tune. She only tried hunting with one a couple times and decided it wasn’t for her. But from that point forward my son and I were able to enjoy the bow season on that lease as long as we had it. I even offered to get my mom a crossbow, but she said she would just wait for the gun opener. The main reason she wanted to learn to shoot a bow was so she could go with my son and I to shoot archery tournaments.

around here its like a dang free for all on who can kill the most deer we got people that shoot everything that walks out and try to fill up their whole extended families freezers. Its like that in most real rural areas ive ever been alot of people still hunt for food not just antlers to hang on the wall. we have to kick a few guys out of our clubs regularly because of it then they go around bad mouthing you because " They got mad that we was the only ones killing deer and nobody else ever shot anything because they dont know how to hunt" no we got mad because you killed every spike and 4 point and little 6 that walked out on the field that we could have killed in bow season 5 times over before you. and they think membership including immediate family means bring your wife and 3 kids and set them all in a different stand every time you hunt.

Hunting Pressure is real. That is why we have special seasons. Bow hunters don't want the gun hunters to come along and start blasting does making all the deer skittish as hail... the gun hunters don't want the dog guys coming along and chasing their deer all over the county, etc.

The easy solution in my mind is season limits. If you want to go run dogs, fine. Once you shoot 4 button bucks you are done until next year. Same with shooting house hunters. You blast your 4 deer, 3 does and a spike... ok then.... see ya next season.

In my opinion what has been lost in having the length seasons we already have here in Alabama is that nobody small game hunts anymore. All the do is deer hunt weekend after weekend. There are few that squirrel hunt, rabbit hunt, dove hunt after opening day, etc.

Once deer season opens everyone rushes out and rides their tree for 3 months.

If you want to talk about season lengths and bag limits causing kids to not get into hunting and the outdoors, then let's talk about why you don't take them rabbit hunting and the fact that all you ever do with them is put them in a shooting house watching a field and getting bored if they don't pop the first doe that sticks it's nose out of the bushes.

I'm ok with the season length. I'm not ok with our current bag limits. I think everyone should have the ability to shoot a few deer.... then they should go do something else, not just ride the hole and continue popping does every weekend. Plenty of other things to hunt than deer especially for kids and developing that love of the outdoors.

That is being lost in Alabama and IMO the real reason for the decline in hunters over the period of decades. Kids just riding the shooting house blasting does, which is far too easy and takes little to no skill... that's the real problem in my mind.