Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Deer in decline

By the way....My hunting is over for this year. Why sit and listen to squirrels all day.

When the doe seasons started in my part of Marshall Co, the deer were just beginning to become a common sighting. That was wiped out in about 5 yrs by people coming in and shooting everything we had been protecting for yrs. I have shot one doe on my place in 20 yrs, and that was with a bow. I have neighbors that used to shoot every one they could see. It doesn't take long to knock out the little herd we had started. Plus coyotes flourished, adding to the decline I'm sure.
It is pretty bad when my neighbor, who writes for the local paper brags about shooting a little button buck over Christmas in his column. That is the kind of people we have to put up with around here. With the limited area the deer have, there is just no where for them to take refuge. I put out my trail cam on Dec. 6th and took it down last Saturday. I had a total of 0 deer pictures on the camera, not a one in 5 weeks on my plot. The deer just aren't here anymore, I'm not sure of the total picture why.
Also ,on Redstone, our fawning #'s have really fallen over the past three yrs, and running multiple cameras all yr, you get a good representation of what is out there, which is much, much less than 10yrs ago. We are at a total of around 60 deer shot out there this yr, they used to kill around 300 in the late 90's and early 2000's, and I think over the yrs of large harvests, it finally takes a toll on the numbers and reproductive successes of the herd.

They will eat them when the plant produces young sprouts. They also like the cotton seed.

They will eat the cotton plant sprouts and seeds all day long. Seen it numerous times for hours on end

Lotta variables, lotta good discussion.

I would be leery of eating deer which had been feeding on cotton because of Aldicarb in the meat (Temic)

Interesting Read.

I hunt in the Florida Panhandle in addition to Alabama. Florida Deer bag limits are much different if not completely opposite of Alabama's bag limits.

In Florida there is a Doe season of 2 weeks or less, although you can take Does during bow season. You can take bucks during gun season and where I hunt they have to have an antler that exceeds 5" in length.

Last year every single time I hunted a piece public land in the Florida Panhandle I seen deer. EVERY Single Trip to the woods on Public Land I seen Deer. On one trip I had 17 deer within Bow Range of me at one time. Granted they were all does and young bucks, but they were deer and the population seems to be greater than what I now experience in Alabama.

Here is what it would seem like. Florida is still in the population building stage of the herd. Every Doe drops 2 fawns most often but at least one fawn every year, so every living Doe adds numbers of deer to the heard and the Florida Panhandle is thick with deer. Alabama's bag limit of 2 Does a day eliminates a high number of next year living Does that would potentially have added numbers to the population. I know a bunch of people that don't shoot does but I also know a bunch of people that do. Regardless each doe harvested potentially takes 3 deer from the population for the following year...The mother doe and her 2 potential fawns. So someone that takes two does in a day potentially eliminated 6 deer from the population the following year.

I am not a biologist, but I do see many many more deer while hunting in the Florida Panhandle than compared to while hunting in Alabama areas. In the big picture it really wasn't that long ago that there wasn't many deer in South Alabama, and NONE in the Florida Panhandle. It would seem that something needs to change and a different direction taken in Alabama.

In Wilcox County we used to get 60 doe tags on 1100 acres and shot does 'til we got tired of it and it never seemed to matter. Eventually our thickets thinned out and the farming ended and the property did not have the carrying capacity it once had. Deer numbers declined each year at that point with only a minimal harvest. We dropped to shooting about 10 does a year or less and average 6 to 7 would not have fawns (milk). I think the coyote population was steady as the deer numbers fell and eventually the coyotes were getting a high rate of the fawns. We still have deer and dang nice bucks, but you have to hunt hard to kill them and the days of sitting on a greenfield and seeing 10 or 15 are gone for us. 30 years ago we sat on the same fields and saw 30+.

And yes, there is overharvest going on in many places.

It seems that the coyotes would move on to a more productive area when the deer population is low, unless there are other types of prey (rabbits, etc.) When our pines were planted and there was lots of underbrush, we had worlds of rabbits. After the underbrush was shaded out, we had few rabbits and much fewer coyotes. Seems the same would happen with deer.
We have a high population of deer now and more coyotes. However, most does do have fawns with them.
I don't hunt food plots that much, but the boys that did, were seeing 20 to 25 deer per 2 hour hunt in the evening. Not sure what the recent numbers are. (it has probably gone down in numbers like it normally does this time of year)
We have lots of browze and I'm sure that contributes to the numbers.
One thing I would try is bushhogging the areas of honeysuckle, and other browze, getting the PH right, and fertilizing according to what the biologists recommend. That is if you have a limited deer population. (and hope you don't get the drought conditions we have been having.)
I don't have a clue about what to do about agriculture permits. That's a real problem.

Hey Garbo, what kind of bear problems and/or predation are you seeing in the Panhandle and on that public tract?

BigT has bears and I know he's concerned about predation in his area. I think the bears are possibly going to become a localized predation problem, too, where they're protected and numbers are growing.

Alot of times deer aren't actually eating cotton. They are eating weeds that have benefited from the cotton getting fertilized. Around Troy one thing the eat around cotton fields is Florida Pusley. it is a flowering vineing plant that they really hammer. I suspect many of your fields have it too. Learn to identify your local forage !

I can identify a Deekhead when I see one.

Maybe I missed it but I haven't seen anything about hogs being mentioned. I hunt river swamp in NW Clarke Co and I have never in my life seen so many hogs and during the summer months, you hardly ever see a snake in the swamp. (I don't think the moc's "stand your ground" and open your mouth scares off too many hogs and the snake is considered a coiled up snack).

Anyway, I would speculate that hog populations have an impact on fawns as well.

When I say we have hogs.. WE HAVE HOGS EVERYWHERE!!!! I haven't seen many deer this year (I rarely hunt food plots but probably should more often).

Does are mamas. Fewer mamas mean fewer babies.



Now add a resurgence of totes in the mix

Already fewer babies. Now even less babies make it to adolescence.

It doesn't take long to swing from population growth to decline when there's only half as many deer reaching breeding age as it used to be...

Thank goodness we have killed 5 yotes so far on our little 800 acres this year!
7 bucks killed and 0 does this season.
Last season - 8 bucks and 10 does.

Our club has a 3 doe per member rule....and i usually see deer everytime i go

I think the only management tool that actually works is trigger control by the hunter himself. All the laws in the world won't keep a deer alive or improve recruitment rates if the hunter (legal or otherwise) decides otherwise. When I was at my processor's place Sunday there was a guy from Shelby County dropping off presumably his clubs "harvest" that consisted of 4 fawns & a couple of spikes. He enthusiastically explained that they are "damn good eatin" and that they just never see any bigger deer down there. I nodded and told him they probably never will.

10 years ago in Bibb county if you saw 10 deer it was a bad hunt. Had 40 in a 2 acre field. Now if you see 3 yearlings in that same field it's a good day. Cameras on greenfields may get 5 pics a week. Coyotes are terrible. Not uncommon to hear 3 packs at a time. I am not basing this on one bad year. I've hunted this lease exclusively for 17 years. About 5 years ago decided to shoot no does and still things have steadily gotten worse. Timber changes don't explain it. I just don't know. I'm like a farmer in the dust bowl. Working harder and looking to next year.

Thing is, doe harvesting is an effective tool to manage a property or area whose deer population has exceeded the carrying capacity of the land. The potential problem is that deer densities vary widely from property to property, county to county. It is important that landowners and managers assess the area in question to first determine what level their deer density is at before implementing an all-out war on slickheads.

we have had hogs for so long, i can honestly not remember having them on the land (aprox 20 years) i use to think the deer were skiddish, until a few years ago we started seeing hogs and deer on the same field and it is now a common sight. i assume they have gotten use to them. however, turkeys are skiddish as all get out of them. i know, surprise surprise a turkey is skiddish