Please chime in and tell me what will happen as a result of the following scenario: Using only 2 counties for simplicity.

2016-2017 season: Winston county: 10,000 deer killed ( 4,000 bucks, 6,000 does)
Dallas County: 10,000 deer killed (4,000 bucks, 6,000 does)

2017-2018 season Winston county: 11,000 deer killed (4,000 bucks killed, 7,000 does)
Dallas County: 9,000 deer killed (4,000 bucks, 5,000 does)

2018-2019 season: Winston county: 8,000 deer killed (4,000 bucks, 4,000 does)
Dallas county: 9,000 deer killed (4,000 bucks, 5,000 does)

2019-2020 season: Winston county: 7,600 deer killed (3,000 bucks, 4,600 does)
Dallas county: 10,000 deer killed (4,000 bucks, 6,000 does)

This is the data we'll get. Someone give me an idea of what will happen next with this data.

I would imagine, they would graph multiple data points and use that data as a whole, to determine the health of the herd vs license sales and hunters. It's all about data, you have to have data. Data is used to monitor both the good and bad, without it you're just pissing in the wind.

To be honest, with information you posted alone, you couldn't make any determination of what was going on.

What other information will they have? This is what game check is.

And if you go and don't see any deer, how will they know?

Nothing, they will study the information for 5 or so years and then determine that further changes in the Game Check is necessary for further study. Another 5 or so year study, repeat.

I am no biologist but just from the numbers you gave I would say Dallas county was basically unchanged if you were to chart it out on an SPC chart but something was possibly causing a negative trend in Winston county. At which time I would use my resources to further investigate Winston county's deer herd and it's health instead of not knowing there may be a problem there until it was too late and would then have to take drastic measures to reverse..... with the data and a little more investigation I may find nothing or I may find I need to adjust something to stabilize or increase the deer population.

How do you know it's not just lower hunter participation? Licenses won't tell you where a person actually hunts.

You realized that the deer herd Statewide was growing or stable until the highbrow QDMA management strategies were the management advantage, oops didn't mean to imply anything, management style became vogue. Now to listen to the noise no deer are being seen, renegades are slaughtering everything that is brown and now we need to change to the next highbrow management strategy du jour to correct the management plan that was instituted to solve the too many does and not enough giant magnormous elk antler pig bucks. So what will be next to solve the next problem that was created by the same government group that created the previous problem?? The circular stupidity of government feeds itself.

Fun4all, I don't disagree with you but believe you are missing a BIG part of the equation: COYOTES!! I'm of the opinion they have hurt the deer population more than hunters. Or at least in my area anyway. They will kill a new born in short order even if they have just eaten. But this may not be the case where you are.

Fun4all this is why counting dead deer is useless . many things can affect trends . if they are not taken into account it's worthless .

surveying hunters themselves is the way to go but what do i know .

That's were using my other resources will come in handy

I am hopeful that with more data available to the State they will be able to avoid another major screw up like the two does a day for the whole season for the whole state for way too long.

What are your other resources?

I believe you are correct and hopefully with the added data the State will be able to recognize negative trends quicker....

Like I said I am not the biologist but I would look closely at all properties registered in our management program in that area, do localized deer censuses, survey local hunters and processors and ect.

I didn't see your response. What other resources are you referring to that don't already exist?

They may exist but without data pinpointing a specific area that may be having the problem I doubt the State has the personal to research the whole state in that specific manner....

Regardless of opinion of the gamecheck, there are numerous trends and data points that can be extracted from the current data collected. If I mis-speak, correct me.

If I remember correctly(its been 2+years since killing something in AL) it asked you for date of harvest, county, land ownership, sex of animal, and maybe antler pt count(can't remember). This information would also be tied to a license number.

These all combined with the temporal scale could show you harvest trends within not only a total season, but you could start to see trends in hunter success across the state as a season progresses. I'd be willing to bet you could map this data and basically "watch" the rut progress across the state.



I had more, but got distracted. If I remember I'll come back

I don't know. There's at least 2 guys on here that will and do come out to check specific areas all the time.

There's all kinds of data you can draw from. Total kill numbers yes, sex of kills, yes, but also date of kill, hunter success by license, hunter success by sex, etc

I believe that year to year your avg hunter success will be just as telling as total harvest in a county. To simplify, if the avg entry by hunter, in Winston county is 1 buck, 3 does the first year, then 5 years later that has steadily decreased to .5 buck, 1 doe, it would be obvious there's a significant decrease in quantity, unless regulations changed.

That could also be very telling, when the season was broken down into sections, bow season, early gun, mid, late, whenever the rut is, etc. this would tell you whether the deer were there, and just being over pressured, disappearing later in the season.

Combine several years of total harvest, Buck/doe harvest ratio, avg success per participant, and when the deer were killed. If you can't paint a pretty accurate picture off that, then you aren't trying.

We both know the state is terrible at handling our tax dollars. Unfortunately, the people we have on this forum are the exception to the rule in hunting. Most of us will invest the time and energy to get state guys out there if we need to. If everybody was as obsessed as most of us, the state wouldn't be able to supply the personel to meet the demand. But, they could potentially focus on a few areas that were having problems.