Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Where have the deer gone ?

I don’t know……maybe your assumptions and figgerin are wrong and there arent 40K deer in Bullock Co……..A lot of that acreage in your figgerin is in cow pastures……especially on the western side. What that 900 actually represents though is a 50% increase in doe harvest over what had been getting killed……If Game Check is capturing 60-70% compliance then the “real” number for the increase is of course higher….…..

I know what I’ve seen in the past on these places and I know what the folks who have hunted them for years tell me…..I know last year was the first time seeing food plots a foot deep across numerous properties that had always been eaten to nubs……I know a lot of places that shut down doe harvest last year because of it……sooooo….apparently something made a noticeable difference……Maybe there isnt an endless supply and shooting an extra 1000 or so does matter

I wish the phones would start ringing with folks needing deer tracks

I wish someone would move in and kill a shit pile of does next to where I work. Them bitches are eating everything.

Just to add a little to my previous post......

Bullock Co hunters are typically killing somewhere in the 2000 does per year range according to Game Check ……..Even if we correct for non-compliance you’re still in the 2500 range……If you’re telling me that an extra 900-1200 isnt even a blip that would be noticeable…..How many WOULD it take in your figgerin to be noticeable???......Another 2000??......3000??........and if there’s that much of a surplus in does over what hunters are harvesting then why are folks seeing big declines??.....Wouldnt populations be maxed out with that amount of annual surplus??.....Wouldnt road mortality be pretty high??

The reality for most of these counties is that the GC data is going to be a pretty accurate reflection of the deer populations……They’re likely aint 40,000 deer in Bullock Co with hunters only shooting 2,000 does per year……The more likely scenario is that you need to drop your total WAY down.

While were doing the figgerin……There’s a boat load of coyotes in Bullock Co too……Its crawling with them to the point you just about cant leave a deer overnight there without them getting it……Something else to consider in our scenario is that countywide fawn recruitment rates could potentially be low across the board because of the coyote density…… Again, a lot of the county is in cow pastures…..acreage that probably doesn’t grow fawns well with lot of yotes around…..Maybe when a big increase in harvest takes out part of the stock like what occurred its even more noticeable because of a slow “restocking rate”……Maybe the restocking of those extra 900 that were taken out occurred more from emigration off the plantations as reproduction and that’s why some large properties saw a decline

Bullock county covers approximately 400,000 acres. It is estimated there are 40,000++ deer there based on DATA collected, that would be one deer per 10 acres on the bottom end of things. The average population for the state of Alabama is one deer per 25.6 acres. At the lowest estimate, that would make Bullock counties deer population more than double the statewide average......figgerin.

Lots of Bullock acreage is managed and privately owned. There will always be substantially more deer on private or leased, heavily managed lands where habitat management, low hunter pressure, year round food plots, supplemental feeding, and selective harvest programs are implemented. In fact, these well managed properties will have a higher carrying capacity than the surrounding properties and they will and do suck deer in, off of these surrounding properties. That means that the 2000 acre club located beside the heavily managed property, the one with 30-40 members paying $1000 dues, that shoots forked horn or better bucks and whacks most of the does that they see, will be the first ones to see a decrease in hunt quality and start complaining that there arent enough deer anymore. They'll always have some deer because of the managed properties being beside them, but at some point, their year after year overharvest of the resource will begin to effect the managed properties. Most of the managed properties that I am familiar with dont have a deer numbers problem. They have neighbor problems, that keep them from being able to achieve their goals for their properties, because dead deer dont get old, reproduce, reach maturity or grow bigger racks. Alabama has always excessively overharvested the resource with regard to bucks. You're just not a hunter if you cant kill multiple bucks a year. "Selective buck harvest" and "Alabama hunters" dont even belong in the same sentence. Have the does been overharvested? Yeah, probably so in some areas. Meanwhile there are other areas where more does need to be harvested. The real recipe for disaster involves the coyote and pig explosions over the last 20 yrs (fawn recruitment & decimation of deer food sources) , the state allowing wide open doe killing all season long, all over the state, the continued allowing of the overharvest of bucks, coupled with management practices driven solely by $$$, with almost zero reg enforcement and laughable penalties for game violations.

Hence my comment "Even if the population is a deer per 20 acres, thats still killing only 15% of the population." and thats 15% with the added 900
Aint no way Bullock is near or below average for the state. The county is well above average numbers wise. I am assuming you have driven 80 from montgomery to eufaula. Its risky at night.

Except for a handful here and there I’ve tracked deer on about every property north of 82…….Union Springs Country Club golf course included……

Again, maybe the figgerin is wrong and overestimating the total amount of deer for some areas……There ARE high deer density areas in the blackbelt but a lot of it occurs in the areas where cover exists in amongst the cow pastures……Right now there are 100’s and 100’s of acres open cow pasture in western Bullock Co that don’t have a single deer standing out in it……The density in those square miles of pasture right now is zero……If you take the density that exists in the cover in places like Fitzpatrick and try to apply it to every acre then you are going to end up with skewed totals that don’t really exist…..Its just like I said in the previous post…..If there are 40,000 deer in Bullock Co and hunters are only shooting 2000 ish does……then there should be a whole lot of excess……..I think your figgerin on the total population needs to come way down…….down into a range where low recruitment rates and an extra 1000 does matters……..

Because everyone knows that deer normally just stand around in pastures all day and looking out in pastures while riding down the road is an excellent way to estimate deer numbers.

Ahhh the classic CNC we all love To put another way, "You're wrong because You need to refigure your estimates until my statement and point makes sense"


Fixed it for you

I bet there there are no deer standing on Hwy 80 between union springs and eufaula right now either but, magically, they get hit on that road every night

Hey, he spent a couple hours tracking a deer there that Jim Bob gut shot and Jim Bob said there ain't no deer there. Also, he didn't see any standing out in the pasture eating with farmer Johnson's cows on his way there. You can't argue with scientific data gathering methods such as that.

I think he has good intentions. 🤷🏼‍♂️

My cameras are producing exactly squat for the last 3 or 4 days. The week before ? Bucks galore. We need that cooler weather to come on down.

I agree that he has good intentions and is passionate about his beliefs. Some of what he says is probably spot on. Some of those beliefs may also be incorrect or misguided but he puts a lot of thought into the matter for sure. Cant fault someone for that.

He just won’t accept any thought that’s not his or even slightly contradicts his deer are almost eradicated theory. Sure he makes good points and in alot of instances he’s right but dang he tries to throw a blanket over everybody cause he tracks a bunch of deer. I

You can have good intentions and still be full of shiite

So Abolt we all of those issues plus an ever increasing coyote problem and the deer population through all of Alabama is thriving?

The road to bad management is paved with good intentions.

Buck traps, giant miscanthus. 😁