Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum State Wide Deer Harvest

You can kill a doe a day, but only 3 bucks a season. It used to be 2 doe's a day. Before that you could kill 1 a day for a week or you had to use archery.

Even if this year is lower than last and it's because of acorns, the doe to buck kill ratio is off. Best we are gonna get is 48/52 percent on a doe to bick fawn birth ratio, but the kill ratio is 45/55 doe to buck...

It's not going to get better until something changes. How much real impact can my club have on 1050 acres.?

Look at it this way. Trophy management folks wanted a 1 to 2 ratio . Well they got it . Imo

There’s 7 counties out of 67 that showed an increase. The others are about the same or decreased harvest. I’m not a statistician, but I’d call that a pretty consistent decrease statewide. If you look at the total harvest we were only about 10k down from last season, which some have speculated might be one of the highest harvests in years. I am of the opinion harvest was relatively average this year. I know a LOT of people had plenty of deer to shoot, but they didn’t move in day light. Getting other reports currently that some properties are now seeing as many as 3-4x the deer they had on camera in season. Why? Because acorns are scarce now, people quit feeding for the most part, and greenup hasn’t yet started for 90% of the state. It’s all directly related to food availability.

Matt , you trying to say hungry deer move more . Lol

Precisely. Long wet growing seasons and high acorn yields almost always have a direct relationship to harvest numbers. And there was that pesky thing called Covid in the 20/21 season that kept people home and in the woods. Send them back to work on a year with seemingly limitless food resources and harvest is going down.

Very low acorn crop everywhere I hunt. Lowest number can remember.

I went ahead and calculated the numbers for every county. I could buy what you are saying if we were seeing similar decreases evenly across the board but that just isnt the case. I dont think the data backs up what you are saying here.......

Also, I fully get trend lines but a 20-25% drop in one year is a pretty significant swing or fluctuation…..especially considering that most all the counties that saw these significant reductions are grouped together in a possible CWD area.

Here’s what it looks like to me is going to happen with this Game Check data. There will be preconceived narratives that are formed and the data will only be recognized when it fits those narratives. For example, saying that it’s the “good ol days” of deer hunting across north Alabama but choosing to ignore significant declines in the data when it doesn’t back that up.

Let’s look at just CNCs map and think logically about what it would look like if you’re were to overlay a breeding map on top of it. Virtually unlimited doe killing in the northern 70% of the state thru the first second and third rut cycles, while extending the season an additional 10 days insures that vitrually every doe shot from December on, in the north zone, has or will have been bred since breeding is over by mid Jan. No additional does will be bred after season closes. Deer kills in the northern 70% of the state are declining in all counties, in some counties drastically.

Meanwhile, the southern 30% of the state now gets to hunt at least the first cycle of the rut and the northern counties in the south zone might have some that cycle in a second time right there before the season goes out. Meanwhile, bucks are still breeding does all February and into March. The extreme southern portion of the state along the FL line, barely gets to hunt the rut at all, as it comes in even later. So a large percentage of their does end up being bred outside of the season dates. Guess what, the extreme southern counties of the state are showing by far the largest harvest increases which would, in theory, indicate an expanding population or more harvest opportunities.

It’s real simple, trends start to show up after years of change. It took a number of years for people to see a noticeable decline in the population after the state went to unlimited doe days which in turn led to a wholesale doe slaughter. Now that we’ve had the extended season (and unchecked doe killing) pretty much statewide, for multiple years, you’re seeing the same thing. It is especially prevalent in the area of the state where the extended season it is not needed for hunters to be able to hunt the rut and the extended season is actually detrimental to bred does surviving, which is the northern 70%. I agree with extending it in the south portion so that they actually get to hunt the rut like the northern guys have always been able to do.

The key is, you need your bred does to survive hunting season to produce next years fawns. Assuming natural mortality is the same statewide, The higher the % of your bred does that get killed In hunting season, the less fawns you’ll take into the next season. If every doe you kill has been bred and breeding is completely over for the year, 20-30 days before the season ends, (north zone) your population will suffer (northern 70%). If some of the does you kill have been bred but your bucks continue breeding for a month and a half after the season closes, you’ll still have a large number of bred does surviving and fawning the next summer thus the population will maintain its self (central and northern part of the south zone). If the majority of your does are bred at the very end of the season and after the season closes, most of your does will fawn and you’ll have more deer the following years available to be killed or a still expanding population (Extreme southern counties in the state).

If we were to put this data into something like a GIS system and show it in buffer zones I think you would get something like the lines below showing the change…..Now, like I said before….I’m not making any definitive conclusions but the signs sure would appear like the decrease happened in direct correlation with the known CWD areas. BTW….if Jwalker is following he may have noticed that I made an error in marking Blount Co green the first time. I think I’ve pretty much caught any errors now.

And yet, the majority of people STILL say that "we need to kill more does". Even in areas where the hunting is absolutely, unbelievably bad. People hunting in some of those counties go all year and see single digits of deer in an entire season.

I really don't want any more rules, but doe killing is usually not good in areas with very few deer.

I moved 2 trail cameras and both my feeders to Greenfield's after the season. I am not seeing drastic greenfield use. I am seeing 2 or 3 deer. A night. One isn't seeing much action at all. Even with a feeder there. All the fields I looked at showing use, but the ones showing a lot of use always do.


There are certain things it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out and this is one. The state has allowed the wholesale slaughter of the doe population. It's gone on for years and it's becoming very obvious. On the last 10 years I have been in two different clubs in Shelby county and I have observed I decreasing number of doe sightings in person and on camera.

If you'll just kill more does, you'll see more deer, and definitely more mature bucks

I don’t know why those numbers are what they are, but every back road around Lamar/fayette co is covered up with deer. You better have your head on a swivel if you’re driving around here. The hot weather delayed the numbers some I KNOW, but processors were full most of the season. We are not hurting for deer here imo. Matt will most likely agree. Y’all believe him when it suits you…..
Again, I live right where you say it dropped off, it didn’t.
Maybe less people reported or whatever, but we’re good.
I haven’t talked to one person around here that “didn’t see deer”. I do know several that didn’t shoot as many. There’s a difference.

I can tell y’all with certainty, having lived in that area of the state almost my entire life, and working with many properties as well, one years decline in harvest has nothing to do with a decline in deer. That area of the state collectively has some of the highest deer densities in the state right now.

I’d point out that the data is not “CNC’s opinion”……It’s simply the data and what the data is showing. Infer from it what you will.

Oh I know it CNC, I just don’t want someone who’s looking solely “at the number” to start messing with our area. I started off by saying idk why the numbers are lower, but we did have some very bad weather the first several weeks. Matt said it best, one year doesn’t make a trend. Most people would kill to have the deer we have.
I’d like to see the season pushed back to 1/31 end date solely because of small game hunting. Other than that, maybe tags to help with keeping people honest...
if you ever can.

Is it unreasonable to think that populations may change? Havent there been midwestern states show severe decline in a single season due to EHD? What was the point in implementing GC if we are just gonna dismiss the data it shows us?

CNC, he’s telling you we both live here. We both hunt here. I work with several processors and properties throughout northwest AL. There’s no decline. When EHD hits an area hard it’s noticeable. Don’t fly under the radar. Harvest was WAY down early in the season due to weather, period. No other reason. Although harvest picked up later in the season, it would have had to be abnormally high to catch the deficit from November.

Yes. We have two years of data from gc. One year being lower than the previous means absolutely nothing.