Ok so in your honest opinion is Alabama better than those you listed as far quality and quantity deer?

I don't think that's a fair comparison. We neither have the soil nor the crops to grow what the central and Midwest states can grow. GA was about equal. MS was better but they've been on a 4 point or better statewide for years they have better soil a well. The MS river basin is as good s you're gonna get anywhere. PA may have been a little better quality(not much) but definitely more quantity. Illinois can't be thrown in there cause of the limited season and it's all bow hunting with the exception of a few extended weekends. Missouri was good but the gun season is way shorter.

Just for chits and giggles big T...since I used Arkansas as an example for a state with an intense zone system, I thought I would visit their forum and see what hunters were saying. Here's just a few conversations. Sound familiar?


http://www.arkansashunting.net/showthread.php?t=201967

http://www.arkansashunting.net/showthread.php?t=208274

http://www.arkansashunting.net/showthread.php?t=202324

I agree with what your saying. In your opinion though do you think the states that have some sort of system where you have to register your kills have been hurt by those requirements?

Guess it would depend on who you talk too. The lodges I have hunted at cannot stand reporting anything to the state. They manage their own deer and cannot stand being forced to report anything. They have biologist on staff and have no need to report their kills.

I guess to answer your question. I don't reside there so I can't speak for the people about their population and requirements. Illinois and Kentucky are the only ones I go to every year. I have been to Illinois and Kentucky and have had terrible hunts where I see little to nothing and come back with tag soup. So I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I can't say truthfully if it helps or hurts.

You're the first person I've ever heard say this about PA in comparison to our state or other southern states in regard to quality. All I've ever heard about PA is they have some numbers but hunters aren't selective, shoot everything they see, and while some big bucks show up, it's not a state high on the "wanna go there" list.

Gary Alt, for all the chit he endured before leaving due to all the chit he endured, may have been right.

I'd still hunt Alabama over PA, though, if someone said to choose.

I'm not saying the overall state is better. I was asked and have to go on my observations for my 5 day hunt when I was there. I did not kill a deer, but did see two 130"± deer during my hunt. I did see a pile of deer while in the stand though. Their numbers are ridiculous. But based on my 5 day observation, I saw those two 130's which in Alabama I may not see one all year. I may have just had a great 5 days. One trip is too hard to really give an accurate account of what goes on during the course of a year.

I remember the PA guys nearly locking up the QDMA forum back around 2010 over that stuff……Here’s some reading for anyone interested. Regardless of right or wrong, it does give you some more perspective on how people can have different opinions when we start talking about how many deer we need or how many we will manage for.

http://www.mdi.net/dml/archives/DVD-DeerMismanagemntOverView-Final.pdf

From that report is this: "Toward this end, Audubon and the Nature Conservancy co-opted a handful of policy-makers in both DCNR and the PGC ..."

Pennsylvania's brass allowed the "oh, we 'support' hunting even though we don't hunt" crowd to get into bed with them. One mistake, of many.

I don’t really know all the details but something similar must be going on in Minnesota right now. Everyone from that state who participated on the QDMA forum left as a form of protest for them not supporting changes that some of their grass roots organizations were wanting to see. It sounded like the deer herd is in pretty bad shape across many parts of the state from what I gathered from listening to those guys.

My bigger point for pointing to these other states though is that I think it’s misleading to throw it out there that we are only 1 of 3 states that don’t have all these new progressive ideas implemented…..as if all the other states are all living in deer utopia because they have. Using the mecca of deer hunting states like Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois, etc as comparative examples is just distorting the truth. Some of them have great deer hunting despite messed up regulations….not because of them. I’ve heard that said about Illinois numerous times by folks on the QDMA forum who live there. Let’s look at some more normal states if we want to see how others are fairing with more regulations than us.

This man speaketh the truth.

Minnesota's deer population is struggling right now due to multiple factors. Wisconsin's upper third, which I think they call the Big Forest or something like that, is struggling and the lower part of the state has issues with CWD, but central is still strong. Michigan's Upper Peninsula and upper mainland has dismal deer numbers. Moose populations in all three are down, also due to harsh winters and a continuing rise in the number of wolves - which can't be hunted in Wisco due to a liberal judge's ruling. Their wolf population increased by 15-18 percent (estimated) in the last year or two.

They still kill some really big, awesome deer up there but they are having significant hunter-agency disputes, as is also happening in Ohio. Hunters there want to see more deer and think the population is too low, and have chewed on the Ohio DNR's ass the last couple of years. Pennsylvania, of course, had its issues in the last 10-15 years about deer.

I don't agree with that. Everything North of North Alabama up the river valleys is not planted in Pine Trees like y'all are use to.

West TN, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, etc. Deer live in wood lots and creek bottoms and fence rows, etc. where you guys are talking about general areas where the monsters being taken from.

If they ran the show like Alabama they'd blast that place to pieces. You can't do what we do here up there, that's why they play by different rules.

People can't police themselves. If they had a free-for-all and NO DATA they'd have much worse problems than we've got in this state. They absolutely have good deer hunting because of the regulations, not in spite of them. That's completely asinine.

Just from that observation PA would have to get my nod too, but like you said it is hard to make a good call off just five days of hunting. Seeing two 130 inch bucks in five days is pretty dang good considering I might have seen that many in my whole life a live while hunting in Alabama

Its true you can't compare the quality of those deer to Alabama's and in now way was that my intention. My point was has the requirement of reporting deer harvests in those States ruined the hunting?

This I agree with. If they had our seasons and regulations the hunting wouldn't be very good for very long....

Does anyone know what the overall goal is? Does the overall deer population of the state need to decrease, be maintained at current levels, or increase? I know smaller areas across the state will vary, but what about overall???

So, how many deer, in our lovely state, need to be harvested annually by hunters? I'm not talking percentages but actual numbers.

I actually would be quite surprised if anyone has a definitive answer to any of these questions.

I would be surprised too.....

^^^^^ This was the subject of another thread that I started, and no ones seems to have even a remote answer to this question. If the deer numbers are already low, kill rates might stay "stable" and "low" and not really drop any, but they wouldn't get any better either just by collecting data.
Keep in mind, Game Check doesn't capture a hunt where you go, and don't see a deer.

But where you hunt is not indicative of the rest of the state's bucks, either, is it? I wouldn't expect to see 130s around your neck of the woods based on what you've described, even despite your management efforts. I'm sure you've hunted in other parts of the state, though, and not just your current location.