Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Al Dogs Tracking Stories 2024-25

If anyone else in SE Bama is like me, they just aren't hunting yet. Seeing more deer on cams this year than last 2 years, but I'm not sitting in 80+ degree temps to kill one.

If folks had something worth shooting then they'd be sitting regardless of the wather.......

Get you and your dogs plenty of excercise and rest cause you know folks will be ringing the phone off the hook shortly!

I thought that maybe if I pushed the button a little early it would ensure that someone immediately called afterwards……We’re trying anything to break the slump right now…… I guess its time to turn my hat inside out or something…..

Economy sucks. Broadheads and arrows have not been immune to inflation either. Maybe with money tight, people finally practiced during the summer months and actually learned how to properly shoot their bows. Shoot a good broad head, Take out both lungs, and a tracking dog is rarely needed. On a serious note. Deer activity on cams has shifted to almost exclusively during non-shooting hours, especially on mature bucks, since the Sunday after opening day. I’m predicting it’ll start picking back up middle of this week. And in the areas I’m talking about, the movement changes are not hunting pressure related. Deer and bucks are still there, in numbers, just moving between 7 pm and 5 am right now.

Tracked a buck in St Clair county this morning. Ended up finding a clean arrow and just a few specks of bright red blood. Dogs tracked it around 450 yards and just started circling. Called it off and headed out towards Gurley to help a guy find his first deer with a bow. He was more excited over that doe than most people are over big bucks.

I have plenty to kill, just not gonna sweat my ass off in the process. I’m not desperate and there will be another day to kill deer.

I thought about going , but since I'm banned from anyone coming to help me, I just decided not to hunt anymore

Huh?

What a night! Between keeping up with the election and spending 3hrs trying to sort out a track its been rough. The hunter said he shot the deer between the shoulder blades straight under him. We started the track went about 150 yards and ended up in the middle of a gravel road. We're standing their watching the dogs work and a yearling doe comes trotting up the road straight to us. She gets 20 yards away and just stops. Dogs freeze and just stare at her. She finally turns off to our left and walks off down a trail. The dogs work for alittle longer and take the same trail as the yearling doe. I think it confused them and they ended up coming back and working the road some more. They finally take the same trail as the little doe go 200 yards and jump the deer. Muzz stayed with him for a few hundred yards but then lost him. Stayed hung up for awhile but they finally figured it out and got us on some blood. This is all really thick privet and briars the whole time. Finally caught up to him when he had to start going uphill. The deer had 10 to 12 inches of arrow running just under the skin down his neck almost like a splint. Weirdest part was he had 4 deer standing around him blowing while the dogs had him bayed. Glad we pulled if off because I imagine that deer had a slow miserable death coming if it wasn't for us.

Dang. That's all pretty wild. Thanks for sharing.

Well......its looking like I'm gonna have to retrain my dogs to skwerl hunt or something.........

I wish we could see more detailed data for game check……I’d like to be able to compare harvest totals for any given county according to date…..Meaning, I’d like to compare the number of bucks killed on 11/7 this year compared to that same date in years past and so forth…..If I’m not mistaken we are actually around the same number of total deer killed statewide at this point in the season as we were last year……It seems like I remember bow season being 8 thousand and something deer…..I have a feeling though that the make-up of that total is different……

Alabama bow hunters for the most part are very opportunistic hunters……They may be hunting for that “shooter” but most bow hunters will drastically lower their standards just to shoot something during bow season…..”Any buck is a good buck with a bow” is true for most bow hunters……I say that to mean that even though the total is the same……I bet it has mostly been folks filling their bow season quotas with young bucks and does……I bet there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of older bucks being shot…..and that’s why all the trackers are so slow compared to past seasons……

For the most part “shooters” make up the bulk of what we get called on unless it’s a kids first deer or something like that…..Yes, we do get called out on 4 pts and such for grown hunters sometimes but its like 75% of the calls are for shooters and 25% for young bucks or something like that………We make our living so to speak off of “good bucks”……People call us to track those “just to make sure”…..Not so though on a doe or a 4 pt……the majority of those just wont get called on…….Its just the way it sets up……..I think lack of “quality” really impacts trackers…..We thrive when there are plenty of good bucks getting shot at

Calls are probably gonna be slow all year……I think we have impacted our age structure across the board statewide…..To what degree??......It seems fairly substantial......more so in some areas than others

CNC- you can't push an agenda guided by truth and facts.... everything needs to be a little cloudy so the experts can " interpret " the data and do what is in our best interest and we should accept it.

Most of the hunters I know have not even been yet because of the hot weather. Last year we had a couple frosts by this time. That has to play a role in it being slow this year