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

And for the record. I think cnc is incredibly intelligent. I also think he’d be an absolute bulldog if you could get him focused on a project. I just think he’s got a lot of time and it appears ADHD. Which I can relate to.

I think duck hunting now is the hardest on account of finding a place that has ducks that you can hunt. Man I miss the 90's, early 2000's.
Seriously though, I agree with everything you said.

I agree, but I don't care how anyone chooses to purse their passion. When I hunt, I hunt all kinds of ways and when I fish, I fish all kinds of ways. I prefer to take the old school route, but I've been known to be lazy sometimes, lol!

I went back deer hunting old school this season in Alabama. No corn, no cameras and no plots. I killed my 2 does the first trip of the season. One in a clear cut(my favorite way to hunt) and one in a hardwood creek bottom full of acorns. I continued to hunt this way and saw way more deer than I ever did over a corn pile or plot. Saw many different decent bucks but never pulled the trigger. With the does and the 10pt I killed at home I didn’t NEED to kill another deer. However if what I was looking for walked out I would have shot at it. I stayed strong and never lowered my standards and for the 2nd year in a row I didn’t kill a buck in Alabama. Do I consider that a failure, HECK NO!!! I set out on a mission and I completed it. I could have easily limited on racked bucks but I’m not going to shoot a buck just to say I shot a buck. Some of the other guys thought I was plum crazy but I’m perfectly content with my season.
Now as far as duck hunting!! It has become a game here for the rich man that has no common sense at all. I sit back and watch this circus they now call duck hunting and just scratch my head. It’s unbelievable what it has become.

The hardest part of duck hunting these days is having deep enough pockets. I know some young guns that go after it hard and kill every now and then. When we used to go at it hard, their great days would be equivalent to our so so days.

Man you’re not wrong. First year since 83 that I haven’t bough a federal stamp or duck hunted.

The duck hole across the creek form has been around since the 50s and nothing the last few years. My duck hole has been around almost as long and nothing. I didn’t get water til the last week and it froze that same day. I could pump it but it’s not worth the cost

Y’all worry too much about the wrong things……

Touché CNC.

I agree with you on the technology taking the mystery out of it, and I posted something similar many years ago here. I didn't have many to agree with me then and I'm sure they won't now either. I think cameras have changed deer hunting even more than legal corn has, and not in a good way. It appears to me to have greatly increased jealousy among hunters, even those in the same club.

I enjoyed deer hunting the most when most of the people hunting with me just wanted a rack buck. We had to find the deer from the sign he was making, just as you described. And it was a great joy if the buck you were chasing actually appeared and you were able to kill him. Everyone was still interested in the antlers, but they were more of a curiosity that you examined after you killed him, and if he turned out to be a big 6 pt it didn't make any difference to the satisfaction of the hunt. That type of experience is just lost in the camera and corn era.

Fwiw, I have never used either. My only camera is aimed at the gate, but others get pictures and I'm always happy to look at them. I just don't use it as hunting technique. I am not criticizing anymore for using them. If you are in a big club you may need to in order to have a chance. I just think deer hunting was a lot more fun for most before that became the primary hunting method.

I’ll say old 49er kinda mentioned this along with a few others like yourself.

Kinda like my experience running a clubs where thought we were like minded
Jealousy crept in.

I saw this this morning and kinda wondered

Preacher I agree with you 100%

I really enjoy your updates. It’s strange to me when you see a county with a 35% decrease vs a county with a 20% increase. That kind of variance just doesn’t make sense to me. What do you suspect would cause such a difference?

I also find it interesting that basically the entire northern portion is down while just about the entire southern portion is up.

Please dont feed the animals...

I would be interested to hear the theories on north vs south myself

Go look at a drought monitor for August through November. That will easily explain it.

......or you might look at the long term trend lines for the north and south to splain it......Give me a little while and I'll post my theory on it......Just getting in from chasing hurt deers

We have two different theories.

So if you take each county individually and graph their long term trend lines on paper then patterns emerge…….I suspect its due to the heavy influence of acorns in the big hardwood dominated areas and the way the larger deer herd as a whole concentrates and spreads out……concentrates……spread outs……over and over that creates a pattern of alternating years of large up down swings in the harvest pattern of many of the northern and eastern counties……Jackson Co for example has a trend that’s something to the effect of…..

3000…….2200…..3300……2400…..3500……2000

……big back and forth swings like above from year to year……So now for many of the counties in north Alabama that have this trend line pattern this was already in line to be a down year….Not only that but the long term trend line had also been trending upward for many of these counties just like the numbers above are doing……So unless that county has a growing deer herd to support the extra harvest then you would also expect that the “down” year was eventually going to drop pretty heavy due to that upward trend being that we were thinning the herd out……

That’s why I think much of north Alabama has the down numbers you see……..a thinned out herd in many areas combined with a bumper acorn crop …….Now West Alabama and Southeast Bama also have their own trend patterns……and really a few counties kinda in the middle that kinda don’t fit in any of the other three groups......Maybe we'll save those for tomorrow morning over some coffee