Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Disappearing Bucks

I use my trail cams more for monitoring than hunting. While not scientific, it does give me a good idea of what's going on as far as where I think my density is.

That may be what you’re doing, but there’s a lot being used to smoke every 3-4 yr old buck on 1/2 acre house lots all across AL. It’s bad in some places.

Yep......you'll likely see a push for a two buck limit within the next five years

yep been happening for years

probably so when they a certain buck shows up everyday at a certain time guess what happens to said buck

Wow that stuff works fast , sanderson lost his in just two months .

This is correct. Let a shooter buck show up behind someone’s house under a light where I hunt and you can write him off the list. Then come December everyone is bitching that they don’t have any deer on camera or on their property. With groceries being sky high the locals will destroy a deer population

I just had 3 maybe 4 new ones come on camera at last light today. Maybe my corn finally guided them in. Of course I was on the recliner roughly 200 yards away right where I probably would have gone. They were all racked bucks with bigger size body but not any special racks from what I could tell. Maybe they will stick around. Have had the same few little racked bucks and spikes/cowhorns pretty much since I got cams going 4-5 months ago until today.

Jackson Co seems to be one of the more heavily impacted counties

I’m confused. So did they get shot or did some other folks in Jackson county just say, “dang crazy just had a couple of new bucks show up on cam.”

Completely normal. They don't stay in the same place all year.

Look at the last post I made in “Fun with Numbers” and it will help explain it…….This will be the year when the excess buck harvest due to corn and cell cams really starts catching up with some areas. The least impacted areas are places like the “quail plantation belt”…….Those counties are already running 18-19% of last years buck harvest and what you could probably use as a standard for “least affected” or “normal”…… while counties like Blount, Colbert, Jackson, Marshall, Randolph, Clay, Geneva…..and quite a few others are only running 5-9%.......They’re already way off the pace and are likely seeing the harvest crash begin to occur….We’ll see though, it’s still early but these are the very counties which you would expect to be the most effected soooo……

That's what I hear.

So you’re saying everything is great up there??....I thought according to you the hunting had already been ruined by the Feb extension???

Btw…..I would agree that it is a compounding factor

Never said it ruined hunting , just not needed , BTW that's what Lying Chuckie said too.

The same could be said for baiting…….Both are adding to the total and causing a higher percentage of young bucks to be killed and decreasing the overall quality of the hunting…..The Feb extension accounted for an extra 10% added onto the harvest in most northern counties……Baiting added an additional 35%

Where'd you get those numbers? So you're saying deer harvest is up 45% over pre extension and baiting ,AKA deer population is down 45%? I DO NOT buy those numbers for most of Jackson Co. I hope you have a better source than Chuckie check.

The hunter survey shows an increase in harvest after baiting was legalized of roughly 35% across the board just depending on exactly what you want to look at……Bucks went from 94,000 killed in 2019-20…… up to 134,000 in 2021-22……and 140,000 in 2022-23…..which is actually a 48% increase in buck harvest…..


As far as the Feb extention numbers that comes from monitoring game check numbers as they come in…..This is the amount of the total harvest that was reported during the 10 days of Feb last year for each county…..For example 10% of the total year's harvest in Jackson Co was reported Feb 1-10….You can choose to believe what you want to from that.

I believe you'd be a great Democratic pollster.

One of the most concerning things that will happen…..and IS already happening……is that doe killing is increasing. The hunter survey already shows an increase from 118,000 in 2019-20 to 160,000 over the last two seasons……and it will likely continue to increase as folks start reporting that they’re not seeing as many bucks anymore and only seeing does now…….and think they need to shoot does to balance the buck to doe ratio to fix the problem……I’m already reading comments like that on social media. You’re gonna see the areas with mediocre hunting become really poor.