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

It frustrates me as a bow hunter. It’s hard to sit on acorns when every tree in the woods is loaded. It’s not an attractant this year it’s a dispersant. It’s like sitting in Missouri and watching huge bucks feed in a bean field at 150 yards. What is there to make them walk within bow range besides just plain ole luck?

Finding them and getting them to walk past your tree is two different things.

Catching them before they get 150 yards out in the bean field. 😁

You know where they are going, all ya gotta do is figure out where they're coming from.

Most years this is doable. But this year there is no rhyme or reason as to where they are going or coming from because there are so many acorns. You know where they are going alright. Any oak tree on the property you or your neighbor hunts. And they will be coming from any bedding spot between the last oak tree and the next oak tree.

Well that won’t work in my comparison. Because they ain’t leaving the acorns (bean field). And they ain’t coming into the same bean field and they ain’t coming in the same way. Screw these acorns 😂😂😂

Before we get too much farther into the season and the maps get updated….. Is everyone in agreement that at least part of the reason areas of north Alabama are behind right now is because of acorns??

My opinion is that its both acorns AND not as many deer…..Most of those counties have had pretty heavy doe harvests 2 of the last 3 seasons……

Blount .....764 .....483..... 692..... 452..... 519

Madison .....1320..... 961 .....1347..... 1007 .....1181

Marshall .....477..... 341 .....419..... 230 .....360

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

It will be interesting to see the reported numbers in January. But for now, it's kind of irrelevant in setting a baseline. For example - if less does are killed this year compared to last year then there were less doe's to shoot due to excessive harvest in previous years. And if more were harvested than last year, it's due to the new 2 doe's per day rule. Sort of a catch 22.

Not necessarily…….With heavy doe harvests combined with a bumper acorn crop we would expect that the doe harvest will be down this year in some of these counties…..which is what we see happening right now….. it makes sense......What if these counties catch up through the season though and end up at +10% or more.......That should at least make you say hmmmmm that doesn’t really add up…….Maybe there was a catalyst for pushing the harvest higher than what it would have been. Obviously that will be the cost of beef and nothing to do with bag limit changes buuuut…..

So is there any scenario that doe harvest numbers, whether high or low compared to previous years, translate into a positive ?

Lets say your doe harvest increases over time from running in the 400-500 range up to the 800-900 range and it stays running at that level for several years…..and most of the hunters are reporting seeing a lot more deer…..You could associate that with a likely increase in overall population as that harvest proves to be sustainable over time…….In other words, you have a larger population that is able to support the increased harvest

However, if the doe harvest rapidly climbs suddenly…..is then followed by a drop in harvest and a report from hunters of seeing less deer…….then there’s likely a good chance that you just lowered the base deer population in the area……In other words, the herd couldn’t sustain that increase in doe harvest and the ensuing decrease in harvest is due to less deer…..A lot of these counties I'm posting up were already hitting what were probably going to be peaks in a decade long doe harvest trend line........ likely coming from folks trying to “balance ratios” following years of excess buck killing…..They definitely didn’t need a bag limit change to push those peaks a little higher before crashing…..I doubt all of those increases that were already occurring were coming from sustainable population growth

So with the previous years do harvest records considered, there is no scenario that is a positive. I'm not disputing that. But that does seem to be what you're saying.

If we drew out the doe harvest trend lines for all of the individual counties there’s a lot of them that have already been on an upward trend going into this season just like the ones I posted above…..That trend line probably represents 2/3’s of the counties ….So unless its occurring in all of these places because of “growing herds” …..then no, further increase of doe harvesting probably isnt going to be a good thing in these places…..its likely going to equal lower population levels for many counties……There are about a third of the counties that have stable trend lines that may or may not be impacted negatively…..hard to say on those...many wont be impacted but there is still potential

I can add to this too from my own area……The doe harvest numbers for many southeastern counties were WAY up two seasons ago…..That was a peak year where a LOT got killed…..That equated to hearing from many of the folks I tracked for in those counties last year telling me about how they were seeing a lot fewer deer…….Doe harvest was also back down again last year in these counties likely due to hunters having lowered the overall population……Now it appears that we’re starting this season by putting our foot back on the pedal in these counties that likely hadn’t recovered…..Probably not what was needed unless you’re wanting to keep those counties at these new lower population levels….

Found a little green briar thicket in a big oak bottom. Bang deer sightings have shot up

How did y’all let us miss the fact that Zone C is still 1 doe per day??… ..How has that not been pointed out in all of this discussion??

Well……so that makes it even more interesting really when making comparisons…..Blount, Morgan….most of Cullman…..half of Lawrence, Marshall, Etowah….little bit of Jefferson…….At least a portion of those counties should be unaffected by the rule change and follow a normal pattern compared to other northern counties.....Again though the difference may not show until the next bad acorn year and "up" swing in the harvest trend

11/11 Update

I'm just posting the maps with the % change this time.....Again this is the difference in how much we are ahead or behind for this same date last season....With the exception of a few counties buck harvest is running pretty close to the same....Its within a percentage point or so for many counties

Bucks



Doe harvest has a little more separation occurring especially in the southern counties as the gap increased from last week.....Several counties running 3-6% ahead now

Does

Cleburne Co is one of the more intriguing situations right now......Its running -2.2% for bucks and +6.4 for does......Clay Co is pretty similar as well...

I still say it's way too early to draw any conclusions from the data. Similar to the AP football poll in the 3rd week of the season.

Numbers will change...