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Cnc you have done hurt my feelings again. We all check them out around here. If you kill one on the club I run you better check them out also or I will go Donald Trump on you. I even buy all the license and I am to old to have to, and I hunt mostly on my own land. Now here is a problem I will give you to ponder a solution. I am not talking about the farmers that do my place because they are not doing it. The crop depredation permits they give. I wander if it would be better to compensate the farmers for crop damage? Then again that would just create more deer to cause more damage. Some of you don't live in big ag land so you don't understand this problem. Some land owners do not allow hunting but want the deer shot at night. I wander could the state work with them to find a solution? That seems to make the argument that they own the deer on their land and can do like they want. It's a thorny problem that I don't know the solution. Why don't you call Montgomery and see if you can get a number on how many are killed and the trend on the numbers. Now don't go to lecturing me on this process cause gut shooting deer at night numbers are impossible to count. There may be a trend in number of depredation permits applied for.

The baiting and cameras has definitely caused the rise in turkey harvest also.
Before the 10 day Feb extension is over people are getting turkeys on camera strutting by their feeders. I am, others are.
Easier to pattern the turkeys, and a lot of folks feed right through into early turkey season.
It really has been a “one-two punch” for animal harvest in general imo.
It’s no coincidence both have gone up similarly.

Fact. The number of turkeys getting killed over bait now is mind blowing. It’s everywhere in spring. It’s too convenient just to keep feeding like you say.

Twas a good weekend of deer killing across the state.......out of the 43,000 deer checked in to this point.....13,000 were killed since Thursday or roughly 25% of the harvest up to this point

Tracks right in line with the cool temps and a weekend with little to no rain. Unlike opening weekend.

But this brings up the catch 22. Danged if not enough are killed, danged if too many are killed.

Most of north Alabama is going to fall an additional 5-10% behind the last update......There's quite a few that are 15-25% behind on doe killing right now

Actually if you just look at the raw number of kills there’s quite a few counties that are sitting at half of the number killed by this time last year……Meaning they may be at 18% instead of 36%........That will show up as -18% on my new map but its actually half……If that trend holds it’ll be -50% by the end of the season

How can the doe kill be down with the new two a day rule.....

Less deer and lots of acorns = less “opportunities”…….Looking at the trends and the upward climb many counties were already on with doe harvest we were set to have a down year both because of increased harvest in the past and because of it being a large mast crop year……What the new 2 doe per day rule has the potential to do is artificially offset some of that decrease if hunters are encouraged to shoot more simply because of the rule change…..Fortunately we do have Zone C to look at where no change was made to possibly do a comparison

Like I’ve said in previous posts you need to cut the state in half and analyze it as two separate entities between the north and south…….I expect the southern half to have the potential to be more impacted this season by the rule change…..Acorns don’t have the same level of impact in pine plantation country…..Again it becomes about “opportunities” and the hunters mindset of whether or not they choose to shoot more because of the rule change…..South Alabama is also coming off of a large climb in harvest that peaked two years ago and was down last season due to less deer……This season at best should be somewhere in the neighborhood of last season’s harvest…..we shouldn’t see another big spike but very well may if the new rule influences hunters like it did in the past…..If we do then I expect to see north Alabama follow suite next season when acorns are back down and “opportunities” up again

The acorns will run out. Also, the dry weather in Sept., Oct., and even early Nov. left a lot of peoples food plots playing catch up. A problem that's going to go away soon due to the rains we've had. It's not always a "less deer" scenario. Sometimes it is, but not every time. There are just too many variables in to quantify in a week and a half of gun season to come to the conclusion that the sky is falling just yet.

Most trends you can see develop early on……What we’ve seen trending since the beginning of bow season continues to hold true and likely will through the end of the season……Every week that goes by where the numbers continue to get worse just confirms that

Here's another way of thinking about what I’m saying……We just had a run of great conditions with lots of hunters in the woods and the numbers didn’t catch up….they got worse and fell further behind……That’s likely going to stay the trend for the rest of the season……and guess which area is leading the way on being behind??.......(drum roll)…………Zone C

Harold, I’m in an area of the state with one of the highest deer populations you could imagine, and ppl aren’t killing deer. The harvest here is way down.

That just can't be true.

We've been told that the new limit will decimate our deer herd due to hunters blasting away.

Fayette Co is -11% behind right now in doe harvest ……In comparison Marshall Co is -30% behind........Still the rest of the day left today though……I’ll post a full update tomorrow

Just gonna throw this out there but…….You know one of the reasons for implementing a system like Game Check is because humans arent able to detect “change” in harvest trends with their eyeballs at anywhere near the level of accuracy as sampling thousands of hunters……It typically takes a great amount of change for humans to recognize it…….That’s one of the reasons for concern in my area…..Hunters are recognizing big changes that backs up with the data shows……..

Something to ponder over that's a very common trend across more than just these counties......Both are the same -8% behind on buck harvest.....Why such a difference in the doe numbers??

ACORNS

Where I hunt in Marengo County, which is very close to Hale and Perry counties, you'll see 8-10 does and 1 buck a day. We are very doe heavy but have a good bit of bucks on the property. We have mostly CRP, cedar thickets and agriculture around us too. This year we are going to shoot 10-15 does and won't even dent the population. We are on 1000 acres and have very limited hunting pressure around us and hear very few rifle shots during the season. Last Saturday I went to my buddy's lease that is around 1400 acres close to Myrtlewood and close to the river and they are slap over ran with does. Driving around the property we saw a bunch, and they just look at you and don't hardly run off unless you walk towards them. Most of the deer we saw hunting were eating acorns and a little grass at his place. The bucks are not on the feeders either. I told him to be patient and hunt the acorns. It will eventually pay off.

The area circled in green is where the least amount of impact from baiting has likely been seen…..Most of the green counties have had stable harvest numbers……It’s the rest of the state circled in red that has absorbed the majority of the harvest increase shown in the hunter survey……Most all of the red counties have had upward trending harvest lines…..