Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum What Can We Do As Hunters In Alabama To Make Our State a Trophy Whitetail State

Also What Kind of Influences can we give or suggest to CAB to help drastically improve our trophy numbers .
I know i have opened up a can of worms with this but I would love to hear Matt and BSK thoughts as well. Example we alsways here of Illinois Kentucky etc people always wanting to go there , just wondering how we can improve our Boone and Crokett and trophy numbers.

"What can we do....."

Require every landowner to plant 50% of their
property in soybeans.

Nothing..... our laws won't allow it. You can only hope to have a property large enough to manage yourself.

Oh, boy!

Shorten the seasons to 60 days total and only have one week of gun season that only includes black powder and shotgun.
Go to a real tagging system and only Allow one antlered deer per hunter. You asked how to make it a Trophy STATE. That is about the only way to do it.

You can manage your property and Co op with surrounding landowners to plant the best forage available , select timber harvest and exercise trigger control. That can help you reach some goals on your property but to do anything statewide will require legislation.

Btw, I don't condone anything like what I posted above on shortened seasons. Just pointing out that it all sounds good until you start looking at what it would really require.

EXCELLENT posts, bill!!!

Cut some of these pine trees and plant beans and corn. Burn under the remaining pines. Make these and other habitat improvements possible. Mainly requiring timber companies to pay closer attention to habitat management, which is probably not feasible for their business due to the cost of such management. And the main thing, teach trigger control. I really don't think a whole lot of people care to have trigger control, or don't understand what it means. I think to really make a difference, there would have to be a 1 buck rule across the state (which I'm not for).
Bill posted exactly what I'm trying to say. Good post bill.

That's a good start......

No possible way to many poachers.

Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi, Wisconsin and Kansas have poachers.

Exactly! And in most of those states it's a heck of a lot easier to see them standing just off the road.

In short, NOTHING! Don't get me wrong, there are tons of things we as individuals can do to make our place better than it is, but there is nothing we can do state wide to try to be what the midwestern states are. They have colder climates, better soils, better genetics. There will be an occasional monster killed here and there in Alabama, but it will never yield what the midwest and northern states do. We need to manage our properties the way we want to and leave the rest of the state alone.

They also have a much larger species of deer - Virginianus Borealis
that produce bigger bodies and hence bigger antlers - on top of having
tons of row cropping that significantly increases antler development.

A one buck rule in Alabama would not increase at all the size of
antler development of Alabama deer at any given age.

{I realize that Ky deer are really a mix of V. Virginianus and V. Borealis
put point remains for that State nonetheless esp. Western region where
the row cropping is}

Pay attention Blessed! He gave you the answer: NOTHING!

You are incorrectly and futilely hoping for a magic wand
to create Alabama into the Midwest and Plains States for bucks and
it is a physical impossibility. You just have to manage the area that you
do have control of the best you can - and try to get surrounding properties
and areas to do the same. That is all that can be done to maximize the
buck situation whereever you are bearing in mind that the Deep South
will never be the Midwest,South Texas, etc.

Are you prepared to pay "trophy" prices to hunt in your trophy state?

I agree with the concept and like killing big bucks as much as anyone. However, I think by doing so on a statewide basis will push a lot of hunters out of the market.

The three buck rule is starting to pay dividends. I have seen more big bucks being taken pretty much statewide since it's introduction. Just my opinion.

My question is why would you want to do that? Everybody isn't hunting "trophies". Killing deer is still enjoyable and fun. Nobody likes hunting big deer more than I do, but changing laws and regulations to force that view on everybody hunting in this state is not only selfish, but not what is best for the sport. It is actually detrimental to hunter recruitment and retention. There are things the state could do to put more bucks into an older age class, but why would we? Current regs allow people who want to do that the ability to. Current regs also allow the guy who gets to hunt only Thanksgiving and Christmas to kill whatever the heck he wants.

It is not right to legislate trophy hunting, period.

To answer your question though....simply go from 3 bucks to 1. More bucks live, therefore getting older. Older bucks grow larger antlers than younger bucks. I am NOT in favor of that statewide.

WmHunter, I know the soil/food/deer is different in the Midwest and North but believe you missed my point.

The statement was made that Alabama has too many poachers, therefore poachers are the reason bucks can't get to 'trophy' size.

The six states I listed all have poachers that shoot bucks. I'd argue that our Bama poachers, and we have plenty, no doubt, are not the reason we don't have 'trophy' bucks "like other states."

My personal opinion is we need to get back to the basics. Get a real tagging system (I like the TN system). Go to a DMAP system where each property/club/co-op can be managed on its own merit.

Hasn't that been revived again?

And isn't one of the Commissioner's planned proposals, to be discussed this Saturday at the CAB meeting, to have a better data-gathering method through a tagging and/or tele-check system?