Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Season Predictions

With the looming hot weather for the last week it’s going to be even tougher now to catch up..

Yep, you definitely have to look at each micro-area separately to see it......I think a lot of that increase in north Alabama is occurring in Zone C & D where they have less doe days...I'd probably "tease it" out separate for sure in those areas

I have several I hope make it to season end.

Especially with the weather forecast that we are looking at from now til the end.

The change in the doe harvest map is really what’s indicating potential population level change……If doe harvest goes way up in an area then there’s really two options…..Its either 1) there’s more does to be shot because the population is growing….or 2) the population is the same and you just killed more out…which likely leads to less deer next year……

That being said……I doubt all of that extra doe killing in the upper right side outside of zone C&D is being done because of option 1…….I would be looking for the same thing to happen next year that’s happening now in places like Macon, Bullock, Montgomery, etc……..in the years following heavy doe killing….

Or, it could be that Alabama has over shot the buck population for the last 50 yrs and continues to do so, so that now there are not as many small to decent rack bucks prevalent in the population to be able to harvest. After 5 years of legalized baiting and whacking those young, stupid, easy to kill 1-3 yr olds by the truckload, with their nose in a pile of golden acorns, there simply are not as many left around to shoot and more people are now having to take does for their deer meat, instead of bucks.

Most of it is coming from folks trying to balance out the overshooting of bucks with more doe killing to fix their problems…….You have people seeing lots of does and not so many bucks and they automatically think the solution is to shoot about 90 of them and things will get better

I haven't pulled the trigger one time this year and most of my neighbors have shot very few times.

Only 4 of the 67 Alabama counties had a buck harvest that was down 15% or greater according to your map.

Glad someone finally said it. After All the gloom and doom prophecies, the data shows the opposite. But the narrative is the same.

Again......those maps are a comparison to the average….. The level I was referring to us falling from was last year’s peak on the recent trend line…….Most of south Alabama is down 10-20% from last year’s trend line peak.....some a little more……Bullock is down 25%.....I think many counties in the north eastern quadrant of Alabama will likely follow suit next season as I suspect they’re hitting that trend line peak this season…….just like was being pointed out about Jackson Co in the other thread……Just is what it is…..What goes up must come down if there isnt the deer herd there to support the increased killing……..

Can you post the map from last year?

I can make a map showing the change from last year to this year……About the most relevant information to look at is the 5 year trend data for a specific county of groups of counties……That gives you the best overall picture of what has been occurring in recent years and what is likely to occur next year and the year after….Like Dekalb here for example…..Just like Jackson beside it you see it trending upwards

Dekalb

Does……988……..942…….1206……1081……1304
Bucks….1378…….1336……1569…..1402……1791

This ^^^^ is the very thing I was basing my prediction off of for the southern counties that have trended upward…..If you see the doe harvest trend increasing and the population isnt growing with it……then it’s pretty safe bet that the harvest for both bucks and does is about to come down because you’re in essence thinning the deer out with that increased killing…..Predicting exactly which year any given county is going to “peak and crash” is the trickier part….They arent all on the same exact time line for how things are playing out....Many of the same general trends are occurring over time though

Here’s a theory……Lets say we take one of these counties like Montgomery now for example where doe harvest numbers have trended upwards from 1400 to 2200 does killed and populations have trended downwards because of it……

In order for populations to get back to where we want them then it would seem that we need to bring down the doe harvest…….Does it matter now who “doesn’t shoot does” in Montgomery Co to make up the 800 doe difference?......Couldnt we just hypothetically call up enough big landowners and clubs and have them NOT shoot any doe quotas?? Seems like this would be a pretty easy thing to do with a DMAP system……Does every property really have to be managed site specifically for does or could it be managed for the county by one big collective group shooting or better yet NOT shooting females depending on what was needed??

Here's a good thread to refer back to when asking the above ^^^^^ question???

http://www.aldeer.com/forum/ubbthre...in=292414&Number=4223904#Post4223904

Here's a one year trend in Jackson County , I'll bet the farm it's the all time record for road kills . They're everywhere , I've never seen so many. I've heard several others say the same.

Acorn crop failures seems to have a much more dramatic impact in areas like Jackson county that are dominated by lots of closed canopied hardwoods as compared to other areas…..I guess the deer are forced to move more and move farther and therefore more get killed……You don’t see the same kind of big swings up and down in annual harvest in other areas dominated by pine plantations and such…….

Jackson Co ain't all closed canopy , I'd suspect there's more hardwood saw timber logging and hardwood clear cutting going on in Ol' Hi-Jackson than any other county . The County is a giant checkerboard. Oh, we also have a lot of row crops in the river valley and out on the Plateaus of Cumberland and Sand Mts. Something that is only a memory down in the LA Black Belt.

Sure, sure……there’s other habitat in there as well but there’s a LOT of acres occupied by closed canopied hardwood mountains…….Lots of acres which I imagine become pretty useless for food in bad acorn years…..I would guess good acorn years deer are more scattered out through the mountains and bad acorn years forces them to move around and concentrate more on those other habitat types…….Just looking at the trends for that area it would seem like it would make it very hard for anyone to have “too many” on their property for any length of time with such a spreading out and heavy killing process occurring every other year

Once again you have all the answers.