I was listening to a Mossy Oak podcast the other day and they got to talking about how right now is the good ol’ days for deer hunting and how everyone who thinks it used to be better just has some nostalgia effect at play in remembering it being better than it actually was. I’m not sure that’s exactly true…..I guess it depends on who you are how deep your pockets go. I think we may have already passed the peak of the good ol’ days.

2005-2010 were my good old days for hunting. I was on crappy property with no idea what I was doing. Just finding fresh sign and hunting it. Now with leasing, planting, insurance, salt, bait, etc, etc it just seems like the magic that was originally there is gone. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it but those early years were awesome. I say all that to agree that it’s nostalgic. No numbers I’ve seen show otherwise

1989-1999

Sharp decline, starting when doe days were replaced with a doe a day. That was around late 90's. Things have recovered some, but still not back to what we once had.

Imo ,,,, they full of ..........

I guess if they are younguns they might think that though

I feel like that means different things to different people and the good ol’ days were generally when you were younger. Kid/ teenager/ young adult.

NO. Not even close for the area I hunt.

What i was getting at , they only know what they've seen or had

Before corn and cameras when we actually hunted. Those were the good old days.

The Mossy Oak folks are 100% correct. Right now is the good ol’ days for deer hunting.

90's. Hunting with my buddy on public land and tent camping. He had a bad Stroke and that ended our hunting together.

I think it was in the mid 90’s though early 2000’s based on the increased number of game, bag limits, rules, advanced clothing, and other things.

It is subjective though, I could say it was the late sixties with cotton winter clothes freezing my butt off sitting next to grandpa hunting that one deer every thousand acres with dogs and buckshot sipping coffee out of a Stanley.

I don’t have the agenda of products to sell. 🤣😂🤣

Late 70s through mid 80s were the best hands down.

Less animals by far every state I hunted in

The 80‘s walking drains, pastures and ag fields. I was so proud going to Claude Strother, Lex Parker, Jim Watson along with several others that i killed a good one on their land without a written permit.

70s and 80s hands down

That be a hard negative for me.

Probably true for mossy oak and there deep pockets that afford them the luxury of being able to hunt the best land money can buy. Do they still own Lee haven in Sumter county? And don’t get me started on some of the folks that use to work at mossy oak reality. My experience they would buy up the best properties themselves just to keep others off it. Use to Hunt a property right next to one of their offices. A man killed a hoss of buck off it I was after also. Club had been there for 30 years. When mossy oak found out they bought the property the next year out from under the club. Club only had a few members mostly elderly men that had been it it for years. Most of those old men were forced to quit hunting after that because they could not afford the higher dues of other clubs. Really a chitty move on them mainly by one man that worked for them. 😬

Back on topic after my mossy oak rant. The hey days for me were the mid 80,s - early 90,s for the properties I hunted.

The good ole days are here now for me. I grew up hunting deer in the marshes, swamps, and rice fields of SW Louisiana. Thinking back at the amount of work we would put in to kill a deer is mind boggling to me now. Absolutely nothing was easy about deer hunting that way. There is no way I could do that today or would I even consider it. I’m spoiled now. I get up in the morning at the camp. Jump on my 4x4 atv. Drive down a nice dry road. Pack at the end of a nice dry walk in trail or road. Climb up in a nice comfortable tripod or shooting house and hunt. Most times I kill a deer in a nice dry place easy to get to with said atv. I bring the deer back to a nice dry concrete cleaning shed. No mud, water,mosquitoes, floating marsh, or long nasty boat rides to deal with. Yep these are definitely the good ole days for me.

^^
Good for you!!

Your just in a better area - which would equate to the good old days for you

While I remember the 70's on Woodley Road in Montgomery well, I didn't kill any really big deer. Maybe 3 shoulder mounts between '75-'89.
Since 2010 we have been on good property, with a good group of like minded hunters practicing trigger restraint and trying to manage he herd, and most years I am paying the taxidermist $300- to $1000 every year for mounts( skull and shoulder), so i gotta say these will be the halcyon days of my deer hunting .

That's the thing...it's all subjective based on what your goals are.

I remember hunting at Carney and Hooper Matthews back in the 70's and 80's and just counting deer. Less than 30 in an afternoon was a disappointment, and 100 wasn't unheard of.

Now, you don't see nearly those numbers, but the bucks they kill now are much better than the ones we used to kill at either place.

70’s and early 80’s when corn and soybeans were everywhere and you never saw a shooting house in a field. Cobia fishing along the Gulf Coast was outstanding and you could just about catch all the fish you wanted offshore. Turkey hunters were few and far between. Today is not even close to back then.

Age and Goals change. I killed many times more deer per year when I was younger and always dreamed of killing big deer. I killed some decent, nice ones but no Book caliber bucks. Now that I'm older and shoot a lot less the last 3 years have turned around for me. In the last 3 years I've killed 3 bucks from 150" to a 176" Booner, all with a bow. Free Range mid-west deer. Then I also killed my Best Alabama buck at 140 and change. So its hard to say.

No way. My hunting has always been good, but the late 90’s-early 2000’s we’re phenomenal.
I killed so many deer I started taking an old 8mm cam corder and taping instead.

The best days were when we had a 1 week doe season in the Southern parts of Alabama. It was a family affair and a great time was had by all. I remember seeing more deer in a week then than I do all season now. We killed some great deer in Pckens County during that time and we were happy for the killers. It was just a great time to be in the woods and walking cutovers. I sure miss the folks I hunted with then that made those the best of times. Memories were made then that are lasting a lifetime for me.

Agree. I wish some of the younger folks on this forum could have hunted back in the 70's and 80's when there were corn and soybean fields galore, and Alabama wasn't just a glorified pine plantation. Timber companies issued permits to hunt their land back then instead of leasing it to just a few. Deer numbers were insane and yet they were in good health, (because they had plenty to eat) and we killed some huge deer. It used to be legal to spotlight until 10pm (without any weapon in your vehicle) to look at deer. In the Millers Ferry area near where I live it was nothing to see 300 deer between sundown and 10 pm in that area. If you could still legally do that now I doubt you would see 15 in the same span of time.

I’ve seen more deer in the past 5 years than I’ve seen in the previous 30 (bigger bucks also). Multiple reasons: The deer herd is definitely better but there used to be a bunch of wild dogs that would run the lake and that ended shortly after Cullman County put a leash law in effect. We’ve also been been hammering the yotes (every time we get one - 2 more pop back up, but we are seeing a lot more deer and turkeys and I think it helps)

AL deer hunting sucks…plain and simple. I can go across the state line in GA and see deer everywhere. Damn good bucks (140/150s) running around in that area too. I see 10x the deer on our GA 70 acres that I see combined in AL the entire year. Folks here are concerned with how many they can kill instead of how good of deer they can kill. I personally know a guy that kills 8-10 bucks a year and none of them would score more than 80 inches.

Any day I hunt is a good ol' day.

Everything was better before hand held phones.

75-80 for me. The wife and I married in 1975 and started bow hunting together. We only had recurves and fiberglass arrows. We did not harvest many deer but had a great time camping and hunting whitetail deer. Having babies slowed us down but those five years left me with great hunting memories.

Where I've lived and hunted for the last 30 years in NE Al. I can say the good old days are right now. We've never had more deer and never had better opportunity to take decent bucks. When I first bought this property and moved here in 94 you'd do well to take a buck.

I've hunted both those places most of my life. Was a member of South Side for years as well. I remember back when carney sold permits for deer hunting but didn't allow turkey hunting. Before I got saved, I use to slip in there and turkey hunt. It was always a really hard decision trying to decide which direction and turkey to go on, because there were so many that were gobbling in every direction. Almost got caught one morning, my friend did, lol!

I used to work for Big Hoop, use to sound like a dove shot on a customer dog drive.

Yeah, those were really the good ol' days.

You must be a bit older than I am (I'm 54), because I don't remember Carney ever selling permits for deer hunting. It was Patterson family leased in the 70's-90's, and each family member got a weekend (Fri-Sun) to invite who they wanted to. The other family members were off-limits during those weekends unless invited by the family member who had "rights" for that weekend. The weekdays (Mon-Thur) could be hunted by all family and their guests.

Seems like I do remember Southside having permits, however. They used to dog the hell out of that place.

I was referring to the South Side of Container selling permits, we always just called it "Carney". I hunted there with my pawpaw when I was kid and then turkey hunted there as I grew older, though they didn't sell turkey hunting permits. I can't remember ever hunting the "North" side that you're talking about but I have fished in that lake with my neighbor when I was a kid. I've seen the bucks that have come off there though and what you said is correct they are some good un's in there after all these years as well as Hoopers.

Oh! and I'm 54 as well.

It's WHAT YOU MAKE IT!!!!! If you're waiting on the state to tell you how to manage, you're way behind!!! What the state says is THE MINIMUM ! With that said, if you're shooting bucks without any restriction on age and you're killing most of your 2.5 yr olds, no, you're not going to enjoy hunting as much. I started really hunting managed land back in 1995 and I will NEVER go back or hunt on any land that doesn't manage bucks by age. "Eight points or better" is not management. My club is killing good quality bucks. Yep, they'e at least 4.5 yrs old and they all have respectable racks and some REALLY nice bucks! So, today, is the good ol' days! I'm killing and seeing bigger bucks than I ever saw back in the 80's and 90's. But again, we manage. Greed kills a hunting club. And if you put YOUR own desires ahead of the game you're hunting, you're behind. You should put the game you're hunting first and "it" will give back more than you can imagine.

I would not go back to killing spikes and 2.5-3.5 yr old bucks like I used to. Over the last many years, I've enjoyed watching them feed and run around being deer. If I need meat... does are easy to kill. For that matter, immature bucks are easy to kill... that is if you have any. We let'em walk and we'll put a bullet or arrow in them at 4.5 yrs old and you ain't going to kill all your 4.5 yr old and they'll be 5.5 when they might be killed.

So, yes sir, the good ol' days? Right now for me!

It’s different from county to county. Bibb county the good days are now. Lamar county - now. Sumter. County late &0s

They gonna come out with a limited edition "Good Ole Days" pair of Walls Blizzard Proof Coveralls in Original Bottom Land. Only 500 are being offered. Bidding starts at $1,000.

Who's gonna be the first dumbass in line?

They must have a goodun in the Big Pen over there in West Point. Morons who make garbage clothes is all they are.