Lie to yourself about letting those deer walk, but don't lie to me... most everyone on here shoots them... in Alabama. CNC and others are not tracking them otherwise.

There’s more people than you think passing deer like that. They’re also the same ones not posting what they’re actually killing.

I do agree that most won’t and can’t. That’s ok. I sure wouldn’t expect everyone to pass them, but folks who are letting them walk aren’t lying.

I didn’t say there were a lot of people in Alabama letting those deer walk. I said that if a club is seriously trying to shoot bucks that are 4 and older, they are letting a lot of the bucks like that walk. I’m not convinced all those deer are 3 anyways. BUT if they are 3, they represent a tiny tiny percentage of 3 year old deer in Alabama. And even if some of the clubs that are trying to shoot mature bucks end up high grading a 3 year old like those, that’s not the norm for them. There aren’t 10,000 130” 3 year olds getting shot by clubs that are trying to shoot 4+.

And that was what CNC was saying. He basically said the clubs that were trying to shoot 4+ bucks were shooting all the huge 3 year old bucks. And that’s not true. Every hunter I know that is in a club that shoots mature deer… if I showed them a trail cam pic of those bucks and they thought they were 3 would say give them another year or 2. And they would. These aren’t your average hunters in Alabama, but they do represent the actions of clubs that are truly trying to shoot mature bucks.

Yep, think of it this way , there are the guys who only kill a monster racked, old stud every year or two or three. Common sense tells us they don't only see super high end studs while in the woods.

^^^^^This. And Pwyse is correct in what he’s saying too

Yes

Maybe so.. BUT I still dont think its many comparatively speaking to AL's entire hunting cross section. A very, very small slice of the pie chart.

If I was hunting public land in alabama Id kill those deer. But, I'd let them walk on private if I had the chance to get a look at them. Problem is when you have a split second to shoot or pass. Ive made mistakes both ways in those situations. I tend to wish I'd have shot and not passed over the last decade.

If you don't think 90 percent are shooting those deer, walk in my shop or any other taxidermy shop. If everybody only shot 4yr old deer or better most taxidermist wood be out of bussiness.

YES... but more like 98.7482571345%.

Here’s the real bombshell, antlers are the only reason anyone cares about age. When they grow a nice set of antlers young, and you can stroke that “look at me”, alabama is what you get.

just for me personally....antlers don't decide for me what I shoot. I shoot bucks by age only..five years and better. I have offed up a couple times over the years and killed a three or four year old by accident and I really wasn't happy. I have let a scadzillion 3 and 4 yr old bucks walk.

This thread is gonna be good for another 8 pages or so no doubt. Every post in this thread has honest points and it’s because every poster here has different objectives and experience and experiences. I can relate because I have at one time or another have shared the same point of view. Most hunters develop through tansitonal stages. I, like most, went through the “can’t see a deer phase”, then eventually developed into a “stacke’em” high phase, then into the “I’m a trophy hunter phase”. Trouble was my “trophy hunting” was shooting every 8pt and letting spikes walk.

One day I realized that at my stage I was more or less picking on the young deer, and while shelves full of racks certainly showed success and fed my ego, my progression as a better hunter had ceased.( Now this was in no way a sin or a regret . You need to take enough deer to get very comfortable and proficient in making a successful shot under pressure and in different situations.). However, I wasn’t seeing, much less killing, mature deer. So either I sucked at hunting them or there were none to be had. A quick investment in trail cams proved that mature bucks were indeed around, so I just sucked at hunting them. Definitely a blow to the old ego. So I made up my mind I was gonna learn to hunt mature bucks, and if that meant not pulling the trigger all season then so be it. Well, the next two seasons I made a mistake both seasons and shot a buck younger than intended. Way younger in one case.

This just ticked me off because I knew excitement and the need to not go empty handed for the season over rode my self control on the trigger.
But it also made me more determined to remain focused and calm when antlers showed up the following seasons. Studying trail cam pics, and I mean studying each buck intently, helped with recognition as well as expectation. I knew ahead of time which bucks I was not gonna shoot. Makes a big difference when you’re not throwing up the rifle first thing and then deciding under timed pressure.

I started development to mature bucks 8 years ago. So clearly I am certainly no mature deer killing guru and am still learning a lot about these older age class bucks. They are different. They act different. They react differently. They are a challenge. You have to hunt them differently….. and that’s what I enjoy. I’m to the point that taking one of these older challengers every other season to every third season is my personal preference to taking 3 lesser challenges every year. My hunting partner doesn’t share the same goals. Yet we get along just fine and I’m happy for him if he takes a deer I’ve passed. Half the time I don’t think he believes I let that deer walk. Lol. But, that’s ok. Great memories either way.

Now not everyone is at same stage in their hunting career. Not everyone cares to advance in stages. Not every one has the time or opportunity to do so and that is absolutely fine. Everybody should have fun and flat out enjoy hunting. If it makes you smile, then you made the right call…. Regardless of internet opinion.

I wrote all that to try and bring about why a “one size fits all” management idea simply doesn’t work. Folks hunt for different reasons, for different levels of satisfaction, for different levels of enjoyment. All because People are at different seasons in their life. Simply enjoy each season. Rather than ridicule them, help them along the way and congratulate them on their successes. They’ll grow if you feed and water them.

To quote Cuz Strickland at NWTF, “Theres plenty of room for everybody “

I get people who walk in with a 3 yr old deer and they are as excited as a kid at Christmas. Even more when they pick it up. Then I get some that will walk in with a 5yr old 140 inch deer and they act like it's no big deal, no excitement at all.

Shoot what make you happy. It takes a VERY special animal to get me excited .

Yep. I get no excitement out of killing 3 year olds, no matter what’s on their head. I know folks around me who get giddy tickled to death over a 115” 3 year old. Neither is wrong. After letting some really good bucks walk years ago I get way more excitement watching them walk off than killing them now. Big old mature, broad shouldered heavy antlered ghosts are a challenge and that’s what drives me now. It’s become way too easy to kill young and middle aged deer. I don’t expect everyone else to hunt like me though. Some folks never get to that point and it’s fine.

The day someone expects me to age a gobbling turkey before killing him will be the day I look at them like they’ve lost their mind. Some ppl deer hunt with that mentality so I get it.

I have enjoyed this post despite the fact that CNC started it. There are just too many variables to consider for this type of mgmt to really be effective. For large properties or fenced properties where deer killing control can be reasonably applied to deer that stay on the property, then by all means wait out those deer for the older age class. For the heavy majority of people in AL who are hunting 1,000 acres or less, then this is all merely academic.

I am very fortunate to be able to own 215 acres here in Elmore Co. Since 2015, my sons and I, and just a handful of family friends have hunted it. Following this deer season, there have been only 11 deer killed off that property in the 9 years we've owned it. Six of them have been racked bucks. Only 1 of those has been anything to get terribly excited about. I run cameras, plant plots, and sprinkle a little corn here and there to enhance the deer seeing chances for my now 11 year old and 16 year old and to get some camera pics to know what's around. I'd say we probably put 'normal' hunting pressure on it during the season for 3 of us hunting.

Each year, we get 12-14 different bucks on camera ranging anywhere from spikes to ones that are normal good deer in this part of the world - pretty normal stuff for small acre hunting parcels. Occasionally, we'll get a high 120s low 130s class buck wander through during the rut via the cams, and once the camera caught what I believe was a solid 140 class buck. For the last 9 years, we haven't come close to hurting the buck population we see on the cams, killing just a few bucks overall for the nearly a decade we've owned the property. I should have 8 and 9 year old bucks walking around on our place right now. Yet almost every year we've owned it, we have 2 or 3 older looking bucks on cam that I usually try to target, but the majority of what we see in person and on cams are 3.5 or less.

The questions remains... what has happened to the older deer that I'm supposed to be seeing every year? They are not showing up in the daytime or nighttime when I have the cameras running, and the neighbors I know aren't killing a ton of deer, and the neighbors I don't know aren't blowing down the timber with lots of shots every weekend or holiday or I'd hear it.

The answer is that I don't own enough land to effectively manage deer when they don't just stay on my property. They wander way off my boundaries and get killed or hit in the roads elsewhere. So being this is a case study for producing older deer, I can't begin to believe that it is worth it for us to wait until the deer get 6 or 8 before killing them. If we did, we would have owned this property for 9 years and would not have killed a buck on it yet. I want my sons to enjoy hunting and for a young fellow, you can't just sit and watch basket bucks without killing a few to get the juices flowing. I believe this is a valid microcosym for the state's mgmt approach. They want folks to have some fun and be able to kill deer on the 5 acre postage stamp spots, as well as the 20,000 acre megaparcels. If you cater too heavily to the 20,000 acre folks that want to grow old deer and mega antlers, most of the deer hunting in AL would cease. I know my land would be just a place to camp on and squirrel hunt if that was the case.

I don’t know about you all, but the first I let walk was the hardest. Especially when I did it with a bow. After I proved to myself I could do it, it got a lot easier. But I’m still no MBrock.

I don’t think anyone was saying that 90-98% of people in Alabama are shooting those deer. But what CNC was saying is that all the hunters that were trying to shoot 4plus year old deer were STILL shooting those deer even though they knew they were 3 year olds. And that’s just not true.

Everyone is different but one thing that makes me sick to my stomach is to see someone shoot a 3 year old 10 point that has a little time length and mass already. Knowing he’s gonna be 140-150 inch deer one day. But that’s just because that’s one of my objectives. To each their own.

Bingo, it’s a pipe dream for the average folk. Shoot what makes you happy. If you get lucky a sho nuff big one will slip up.