I have read this entire thread and noticed something was missing from every post. Many people have posted that the (assumed) reason for all these regulations, rules, apps, etc is to increase the health of the states deer population.

Setting numbers of deer, specific season dates, etc has less to do with what they are hoping to accomplish than the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of a deer herd population needs.

That would be the availability of food. I do not mean the corn in your feeder. I mean row crops and acorns. We do not have the number (and size) of deer in Alabama that they have in IL because of the crop land.

If Alabama wants to improve its deer population then they should offer incentives to move from pine plantations and cattle pastures to more corn, soybeans etc.

I know for a fact that there were many more deer in Sumter county when everyone was row cropping (25 years ago). I am guilty of it myself. I was unable to find someone who wanted to row crop my place and we moved to cattle and hay, because that is what we could lease it for. I have slowly added parcels of pines in areas where the pastures was not leased. My property has gone from 1100 acres of corn, soybean and cotton to about 650 acres of pines, 400 acres of pastures, and a 50 acre lake. The pastures and pines are nowhere near as desirable to deer as would be corn and beans.