Alright. You tell us why those states restrict gun seasons to a few days / couple weeks max. Why? Let’s hear it.

Kentucky not only restricts number of rifle days, but has a one buck limit.

I hate restrictions as much as the next guy. But some deer are easy to kill, and the place where they live makes it even easier.

They don't have acres and acres of pine thickets, everywhere we have pines here, they have a big ol' ag field or open prairie type land.

Turkey is 100% correct.

Game allocation starts with a simple question of "how many can we sustainably kill?" From there, other considerations, such as hunter satisfaction, comes into play.

Example: state thinks the herd can sustain removing 100k critters. Well, they could set 100/day bag limits and turn folks loose with night vision, spot lights, and helicopters and get to 100k in a weekend. They’d reach the quota and could shut down season for the remainder of the year. They would also really piss off the vast majority of people without access to choppers and night vision. Instead, limits are set to slow down the efficiency of the killing so that it takes longer, giving more people the opportunity to enjoy the process. These limits have limits as well though. From a management perspective, they still want/need to take a certain number of critters from the landscape to maintain the best health of the overall herd, so they can’t make it so restrictive that these critters can’t be killed. There has to be balance.

Just because Alabama says you can kill a deer every day of the season doesn't mean you have to try and do it.

Look at heard numbers by state Ohio says 600k-900k Alabama 1.75 million. If you restrict the season here like northern states it would cause an overpopulation in one season. Alabama will never have seasons like a lot of you want for some reason so why even clutter up this site with it? Go to Ohio or Iowa deer hunting forum and praise them I'd bet most would tell you they would like longer seasons and more tags.

A lot of hunters in those states and every other state also are unhappy with their state agencies. They cry and moan about non-resident hunters coming in, the cost of this and that, more regulations and laws and restrictions, why they can't have this or that, and on and on. Even in states like Ohio and Wisconsin, which have heavy data-gathering and public meetings down to the county for county-specific limits on deer, they still aren't always happy.

Complaining isn't exclusive to one state.

I'd venture to say that at one time, Alabama's deer herd may very well have numbered close to 1.75 million but I'd also say that that was probably 20-25 yrs ago when it peaked and it is substantially lower today. In fact, what I just looked up on the google machine says it peaked at 1.75 million animals in 2000. I've hunted almost exclusively in 4 counties in AL over the past 30 yrs and still have access to some of those same properties. As far as numbers go, we are seeing less than 50% of the total number of deer that we used average seeing in the 90s and early 2000s and these are highly managed properties. Every deer killed is weighed and aged and observation data is kept for all hunts. Good afternoon sit used to be 20+ deer, now you are happy and consider it a good sit if you see 6-8. I dont know about the population in the north half of the state but I do not know of any hunter hunting in the west central blackbelt that will tell you that they have more deer now, than they did in the mid 90s and early 2000s. Population is down drastically in the counties that I hunt compared to what it used to be. My buddies hunting further south on managed properties are seeing the exact same thing population wise.


Chris Cook AG&F, was quoted in an article for Realtree in 2022 as saying that Alabama's deer population was 1.25 million animals. Based on what I see personally, if we started with 1.75 million in 2000, I'd say it is probably less than 1.25 million, since we and others around us have seen a larger % decline. If Chris is correct and these numbers are correct, our deer population has decreased by 30% over the past 20 yrs or so from its high point. Purely supposition on my part but I'm betting that this decline did not start until the state instituted the unlimited doe days. This decrease to me, coincides with one thing, the change from does days and the highly controlled DMAP program, to everyone hunting in the state being able to blast does every single day of the season for the entire season. The guy that owns 2 - 40 acres and used to kill a single doe or maybe 2 off his property, now has the entire season to kill does instead of just a few days and is probably killing at least double that number and that is happening on 10's of thousands of small properties all around the state.

If I was running things, which I'm not, I'd keep the seasons like they are, keep the 3 buck limit, impose a 5 doe limit with a tag system that comes with your license, and do away with chuckie check.

I'd say it's higher than 1.25 and really probably loser 1.5. I'm sure numbers are down some but the mass slaughter of doe isn't happening like some of you think. Back in the day yeah you'd probably see 20 deer or more and zero bucks now I see way more bucks in that 6-8 deer a day. When you stop seeing deer dead on the side of the road then we should worry and I'm seeing tons of dead deer on the side of the road.

The big cold snap this year that killed off everything green is likely causing the deer to have to spread out and search for late season food more than normal years……which results in road mortality.

Even before the freeze?

You gonna answer my question.

Never mind. You don’t have to. I know the answer. I already typed it once.

And I never said I like it. I don’t like restrictions at all. But they have to regulate it.

I can only speak for the counties that I regularly drive through here in south Alabama like Bullock, Macon, Lee, Chambers…….but I haven’t seen very much at all this year up until the last couple weeks…….I suspect that corn is playing a role as well in the movement patterns we now see…..Deer cant live off just corn so they will spread out looking for their other food sources but then likely return to the corn piles which may be causing even more excessive traveling “back and forth”

Ohio and Bama do not compare. Bama has more than double the deer population as Ohio.

I did.

You just don't like the answer

I haven't killed a doe in probably 15 years but I busted her ass today just to shrink the numbers down even farther so thanks for help filling my freezer

I take it you don’t believe corn effects movement and travel patterns……You must have never hunted land that borders a highway.

1bamashooter........You must be friends with some of the top brass......It seems like your motive here in these discussions is simply to defend them

Defend who? People that don't agree with your bullshat?

No. You didn’t.

Tell us why those states restrict gun as a weapon, and have very short seasons. Real simple question?