Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Charts and Graphs

This is mainly just to see how the new 2 doe per day rule impacts us compared to last year, if any….. Nov 4 was the first full update I made last year and I’m gonna try to make an apples to apples comparison of the same day this year….

This is last years map for buck harvest on Nov 4……As a reminder this is a comparison of where we were on that day compared to the average total for the 4 previous years……For example, Marshall Co had killed 5.8% of the average total buck harvest for the season by this date last year



Now this is a map for this season on the same day compared to the same 4 year average….To make it easier to see the difference from last year to this year I’m just posting the amount of change on this map….whether it has increased or decreased by “X” amount….For example, Bullock Co is +2.0% ahead of last years buck total on this same day……Blount Co is -1.5% behind…..



Now here’s the same thing for does…….Last year on this day…..



And again this is the amount of change for this season…..Still early but a lot of counties a good bit ahead of last season…..some a good bit behind....I'll update it again in a week or two

The small percentage differences would be statistically irrelevant on such a small sample size.

Shelby is up because I killed a doe last saturday. Didn't kill one the year before. LOL!!

It’ll get better in a few more weeks although I bet some of these patterns will persist…….Some of the 0.1 type differences arent very much but counties like Cleburne for example being at 14% of doe harvest instead of 9%......or Houston being at 7% instead of 3%....those are pretty big jumps for this early on

Even counties like Baldwin for example going from 1.5% last year to 3.8% this year is the difference in 44 does being checked in last year versus 112 this season…..Again, its very early but that’s nearly three times as many for the same time period……It could be nothing or it could be an early sign of things to come…..We’ll know a lot more 3-4 weeks from now

Back when I was a stone cold doe killer during the "2 a days" a few years ago, I would do my doe killing as early as possible so as not to be shooting them when I was looking for a buck during the rut. It could be that people are doing that now that they can again and slack off later.........could be.

Come on brother... you know this post doesn't fit the narrative here.

The fact is, there could be ALL KINDS of reasons why harvest could be up or down. Lockjaw mentioned one above - maybe more people are hunting this bow season because we've actually had some colder weather and people are more interested in going. Maybe it's because the acorn crop is heavy/light (it's heavy around our area this year) and deer numbers on specific properties are different from last year. Maybe it's because processors have become more strict on mandatory reporting... or maybe it's because some processors have advertised that they're taking deer to help people who's lost SNAP benefits (two in my area are doing that). Mark it down though... if any numbers are higher this year it's GOT to be because of the increased doe harvest.

And the variances could easily be due to things stuck as weather, etc. But it is worth watching.

This part is very true......weather does play a factor.....You really need some kind of running chart that's mapping the "bad" weather that occurs on Saturdays and Sundays......Just thinking back on it I'm not sure if we've had any significant differences from north Alabama to south Alabama up to this point.....Maybe some rain occurred up there in north bama on the weekend that kept hunters out of the woods??

When keeping up with this in the past....a large part of the doe killing will occur during the 2-3 weeks surrounding the rut for the different areas......A lot of it just has to do with the number of hunters that are in the woods during that time.....A big portion of the doe harvest wont occur until Jan.....Some of the southern counties will kill 10-20% just during the ten days of Feb......

What I'm really looking for here early on in the numbers is a possible change in hunter "attitude".....Are hunters intentionally killing MORE does this year??.....Something to look at is the change in buck harvest compared to the change in doe harvest......If they both have a similar change then its more probable that it could be weather related.....However, if you only have a big increase in doe harvest and buck stays the same or even decreases.....you might think that's the choice of the hunter.....That's what is occurring in Cleburne for example right now......Buck harvest is -0.1 while doe is +5.3.......Its just something to cast a guess at for now but in the past a lot of the early patterns have just continued to be what they are

I want to kill them early and often. 2 a day helps with this.

What y’all are saying is that some of the harvest could be just shifting forward due to the rule change…..and that’s plausible….it could be…....What I’m specifically looking for…..and we wont know this for sure until the end of the season…..is if we are killing more total because of it…..If simply changing the rule encourages more doe harvest……That’s why when some counties have killed 2-3 times as many up to this point as the same time last year, it jumps out as a possible hmmmmm…….We'll see how that pans out moving forward

I would think most people go into the season with a ballpark number in mind of how many does they would like to kill, whether based on how much they can eat or other management objectives. The amount you can kill in one day really shouldn't change that math.

I know that my early camera surveys on my food plots are showing a ton of does. I probably need to kill more than I normally would. The 2 per day option definitely helps with that

A number that would be VERY useful to know would be the change in the amount of does being donated to the hunters feeding the hungry program.....Most of those are likely being shot to "manage the herd"

It could be some of those things.....Like a said about the weather though....If its factors like those then its going to be more likely that you have a similar change for both bucks and does and not one that's drastically different from each other.....Right now its a pretty sizeable difference in a lot of counties with buck harvest being the same and only doe harvest way up....It's early though.....If the next update shows the trend continuing to grow then it might be something specifically doe related

Iffin you really want to make these situations more interesting when trying to make a determination for the “cause” of the changes…..then we gotta also look at the trend for the last 5 years and see if we’re coming off of a large kill last year or something of that nature… ..Some counties are already coming off a peak kill last year for the last five seasons…..Dekalb for example that’s -2.5% behind…..Maybe they’ve shot a few too many already and don’t have as many “opportunities” occurring this bow season…..These start with last year and go back in time

Dekalb…..1330.....1082.....1206.....942.....988

It’s a pattern for several of the “down” counties in north Alabama

Lawrence.....766.....573.....653.....399.....495

St Clair.....1509.....983.....1128.....847.....974

What seems to be a pretty constant pattern is that you have groups of counties clustered together behaving the same as each other through time for the most part…..North Alabama and South Alabama almost seem to be operating in two different universes from each other…..constantly opposite of each other in some way…..I think it probably is just that…..There’s enough variables that are different like land use patterns and hunter density that you have different responses to “change” when another common variable is tweaked…..For example baiting being legalized statewide and having slightly different responses occur from it in north and south Alabama…..You almost need to just cut the state in half and analyze each half by itself without much consideration for what’s occurring in the other influencing your thoughts about it….I think north Alabama is on a while different timeline in its response…..Its like the same pattern lagging a year or two behind…..

I’ll say this…..”IF” we end the season with errrbody have a significant increase in the doe numbers…..It think it would be safe to say its very probable that the two per day rule influenced harvest….That’s not likely to happen buuuut…..just sayin if it did……

I think it's even more detailed than north and south ( as you indicated ). Better management would happen with more specific rules per county. They used to do this years ago. For example, it was illegal to shoot anything without antlers in my county for a really long time. But two counties south it was a different story. Then they eased it up to one week of doe days, etc. This is something several have been saying all along. The state is way too big to be managed under a single set of rules. I know the state has broken into regions, but the rules per region aren't significantly different across the board.

There's no need to complicate it that much…. You can achieve better management in simpler ways