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

No…..the “Y” subgroup has seen the least amount of change over the last 5-6 years…..They likely haven’t whacked out the buck population in the same manner as the “X” groups generally speaking…….They haven’t already increased doe harvest either due to an influx of more hunters or trying to balance ratios…..They have the least amount of potential for the two doe rule change to have an impact……They MAY shoot more does but its likely that those folks will be the ones who shoot the same amount as they’ve been shooting…..The “X” subgroups have already been ramping up doe harvest…..This has the potential to just encourage more of it....Its really a watch and see but that's kind of what I expect to happen

This is a general trend that many counties are on with doe and buck harvest…..That’s a 50% increase in doe harvest from 2020-23…..The dip back down in 24 is likely from decreased populations……Now we wait to see what hunters do this year…..They did not need a 2 doe rule change to encourage folks to shoot more……

…………………2020………..21……….22……….23……….24
Montgomery…..1421………1486……1706……2125……1703

Compare that doe trend line to lets say Pickens Co......Very different things occurring in some counties versus others

…………………......2020………..21……….22……….23……….24
Pickens….…..……2246……….2101…….2210……2067…….2183

Two seasons ago the entire southeast quadrant had peaked out doe harvests that were 30-50% above what they had been like the Montgomery trend line…..Much of North Alabama is following a similar line only a little more delayed due to the back and forth swings they have…..The back and forth is just causing the cycle to take a little longer and why you see the north and south halves of the state differing right now…….North Alabama was already expecting “the dip” to happen this year……Its just acorns though right???

…………………2020………..21………..22……...….23….……...24
Dekalb………….988……….942………1206………1082……..1330

What’s actually occurring in North Alabama this season is that you have “the dip” that was already coming from ramping up harvest AND a heavy mast crop both hitting in the same year…..The result will likely be a pretty significant decrease in harvest for the northern zone

And will result in a ton of deer next year and increased harvest. 😁

I don’t think so Tim……A lot of areas have low fawn recruitment rates due to lesser quality understories and/or high coyote populations……..When the stocking level is lowered in these areas it isnt always going to just jump right back……For example, if we kill 3500 does in Jackson Co then we need 3500 doe fawns for replacement to survive just to stay even…..If we up that doe harvest to 5000 does then its not a given that we have the fawns to replace them……The overall stocking rate gets lowered in that situation

Sit back and watch. Harvest is going to be down this year. It’s going to be up a good bit next year. We’ll have high recruitment and lots of deer next season.

Harold this stuff is highly predictable.

Just because you increase doe harvest and decrease population levels……its not a given that fawn recruitment will increase…..That assumes that the deer are bumping up against capacity and lacking for resources……It very well may be that most does are healthy and already having twins but few are making it due to coyotes and marginal understory……Decreasing the population doesn’t change that

Here is a simple graph showing two different harvest trend lines……Both lines have ups and downs but the trends over time are not the same. The green line is what you see occurring in many north Alabama counties like the Dekalb example from above…..The red line is what’s occurring over there where Matt’s at on the west side of town

So you’re going to spend the next 3 pages trying to disprove the guy who’s been studying deer since age 7. Go forth and prosper. I’ve got a guy on a dozer who’s improving habitat that I need to check in on. 👍🏼😂

That’s exactly what happens on our place when we have slow years. Our season was way off from what we would normally see during the season. Our harvest numbers were down some also. We are slap covered up with deer right now. And I love it.

I was in a club a few years ago and one of the members was a biologist. A new member told everyone to do things different than the biologist recommended because he'd read or seen something different on the innerwebs.

Unfortunately, the guy with the lease listened to the wrong guy, which is why I got out.

I'm going to spend my season trying to get the numbers up for Madison County.

Looks like I'm gonna be doing a lot of shooting...

Its verging on comical now......

Did I read above that you said they did not need a two for a day limit to encourage people to shoot more?

I totally agree with that. They didn’t need it to shoot more. They already could do that with the current rules. I’m glad we agree on something! Man it’s fulfilling when you find something you been looking for for a very long time.

If people would just hunt akernz and get off that corn feeder they'd kill more deers. Can't tell nobody nuffin though.