Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Let's have a discussion about....

Tags nor game check is going to get bucks into a higher age class. Take away cell cams and legalized baiting, and you’ll see a difference.

Would only punish the rule followers.

When I lived in Oklahoma they had tags. You could not take a deer into a processor without it being called in and tagged physically. The game wardens did inspect processors on a random basis. If they had a unchecked deer it was their ass. If you processed your own meat you could get around tagging if you wanted too.

I like to take cell cams off most of my fields before November! I may be only guy on here not hunting tame deer! Daylight and corn never happen with my old deer all season. Pre season it happens! I left cam on big field lot of season last year!

I should hav some really nice deer this year but afraid several did not make it - maybe they daylighted on somebody elses corn pile - they dont on mine

Good deer i killed last year was on a field i did not corn! Lack of pressure from a cell cam and from feeding prob helped

But i agree w Matt - tags will do 0 for age! We got way too
Many losers/outlaws

You saying if a guy shoots a young buck he’s a loser? Or am I miss reading that

BSK used to be a big proponent o fmanaging buck age structure using “total buck harvest” …..He talked about some land in TN where I believe he was hunting with family……Said they didn’t have any rules on which buck you could shoot….. they simply limited the total number allowed to be killed……I think it might have been something like 20% or 30% of whatever he determined the buck population to be through camera surveys…..So for every 10 bucks they killed 2 leaving the other 8 to move into the next age class…..That’s the general concept anyway……

I bring that up because that’s essentially the same idea with tags and bag limits……They manage age structure through limiting total buck harvest…..

All deer daylight and eat corn, no matter where they live or how old they are.

I spotted feeders and corn piles all over S-Al & S-Ms flying around in the helos...

Cell cams don't scare away big deer. Some deer may react to a camera but it's typically a "click" from the picture taking or a flash but human pressure is what makes a deer weary.
If ya think that's what it is simply put them 10-15" off the ground.

I took it the same way lol

We have had modified antler restrictions and a season buck limit for 20 years. That was a balance between the Talabama hunters demanding everyone fall into their trophy lockstep mentalilty and the BillyRayBob shoot'em all whatever guys on the other side of the bell curve. The majority of hunters are in the middle.

The result after 20 years is ... pretty much the same. Maybe pockets of older bucks but overall, pretty much the same.

Having a 1-buck limit with antler restictions won't magically achieve Iowa-Midwest-Kansas-MonsterBucks territory. It won't. Even aggressive enforcement of tagging-checking and that combo won't start magically pumping out Booners everywhere. It'll only make the majority of everyday hunters pissed off at the trophy guys and create a wider chasm.



What we have at the present is a check system that a LOT of hunters ignore because it's easy to do so and enforcement has the bite of Grandma with her dentures in the glass of bubbling Polident. As Jawbone said, it's an honesty tax. Either enforce it with a mandatory tagging system with visible tags on the deer and required check-in, or continue with the half-ass measures we have now. No one enjoys more regulations but if you're going to do it, don't do it halfway.

Tagging isn't necessarily a "grow big bucks" deal. It's a data and management issue, which the Department always ballyhoos about wanting and doing. "Need more data for better management! Oh, we're only getting a little data!" A bunch of hunters would bitch and whine about physical tags, more enforcement, yadda yadda, but a lot of these are the same ones who bitch and whine about anything. They'd get a check for $999 and cry that it's not $1,000.

It's interesting that waterfowl hunters KNOW if a game warden (state or fed) checks them, they better be within the limits, not have lead shot, have their stamps, all the things. Go to Arkansas or Louisiana or California or any duck hunt and fart around with the waterfowl regs, and you likely are going to get hammered. Go to Oklahoma or Kansas or Wisconsin and fart around with their deer check stuff, and you'll get in trouble. And yet in the Southeast, well, it's Goober and Gomer offering a glass of sweet tea and not wanting to upset "the consumer" with too much enforcement.

You guys in the Department and on the Conservation Advisory Board reading this and cluck-clucking about it, either sh*t or get off the pot. You know it's a problem. Y'all want data and numbers for deer and turkeys but mollycoddle around the tagging issue. Physical tags are easy to implement. They are. Y'all know they are. Umpteen other states do it. It's not brain surgery. Either do something about it and have some enforcement teeth or wave the white flag.

I think I've been insulted. 😃

God it pisses me off EVERY time you say that.

Cell cams are so convenient. I don't have to drive the hour to my property to check a regular cam and the cell camera helps me keep an eye on my camp. If someone broke in, I wouldn't even know until the next time I drove down there and pulled an SD card out and looked at it. Hell one time I drove off in a hurry and wasn't sure if I closed the gate behind me. requested a pic from my camera and confirmed the gate was closed without having to drive back down there.

"make it illegal" always has unintended consequences.

I agree. My lease is 1 and 1/2 hours from my house. I like sitting on my couch and seeing what's going on up there.

I think you guys who are talking about property surveillance have a point, but it wouldn’t bother me at all if they outlawed cell cams for hunting purposes today.

Between this and the public land post, you may should get some BP meds. 😂

I don't necessarily disagree that they are overused in assisting with killing deer...maybe...I can't say I have ever gotten a pic, dropped what I was in the middle of, ran out to a feeder and shot the deer in the pic...maybe it happens I dont know.

However I do know that it is not possible to make something like that illegal without affecting its other uses. If a game warden sees a cell cam out by a gate in the woods he would still be able to write you a ticket for it if he wasn't in a great mood that day. that is just the way the law works.

I try to control it with diet and exercise ...that does not seem to be working either since I still waddle around like a big fat arse .... I am grumpy all the time lol

Same. 😂