Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Let's have a discussion about....

We have had modified antler restrictions and a season buck limit for 20 years. That was a balance between the Talabama hunters demanding everyone fall into their trophy lockstep mentalilty and the BillyRayBob shoot'em all whatever guys on the other side of the bell curve. The majority of hunters are in the middle.

The result after 20 years is ... pretty much the same. Maybe pockets of older bucks but overall, pretty much the same.

Having a 1-buck limit with antler restictions won't magically achieve Iowa-Midwest-Kansas-MonsterBucks territory. It won't. Even aggressive enforcement of tagging-checking and that combo won't start magically pumping out Booners everywhere. It'll only make the majority of everyday hunters pissed off at the trophy guys and create a wider chasm.



What we have at the present is a check system that a LOT of hunters ignore because it's easy to do so and enforcement has the bite of Grandma with her dentures in the glass of bubbling Polident. As Jawbone said, it's an honesty tax. Either enforce it with a mandatory tagging system with visible tags on the deer and required check-in, or continue with the half-ass measures we have now. No one enjoys more regulations but if you're going to do it, don't do it halfway.

Tagging isn't necessarily a "grow big bucks" deal. It's a data and management issue, which the Department always ballyhoos about wanting and doing. "Need more data for better management! Oh, we're only getting a little data!" A bunch of hunters would bitch and whine about physical tags, more enforcement, yadda yadda, but a lot of these are the same ones who bitch and whine about anything. They'd get a check for $999 and cry that it's not $1,000.

It's interesting that waterfowl hunters KNOW if a game warden (state or fed) checks them, they better be within the limits, not have lead shot, have their stamps, all the things. Go to Arkansas or Louisiana or California or any duck hunt and fart around with the waterfowl regs, and you likely are going to get hammered. Go to Oklahoma or Kansas or Wisconsin and fart around with their deer check stuff, and you'll get in trouble. And yet in the Southeast, well, it's Goober and Gomer offering a glass of sweet tea and not wanting to upset "the consumer" with too much enforcement.

You guys in the Department and on the Conservation Advisory Board reading this and cluck-clucking about it, either sh*t or get off the pot. You know it's a problem. Y'all want data and numbers for deer and turkeys but mollycoddle around the tagging issue. Physical tags are easy to implement. They are. Y'all know they are. Umpteen other states do it. It's not brain surgery. Either do something about it and have some enforcement teeth or wave the white flag.