I don't believe only 3,000 +/- deer were killed in Alabama between midday Friday and midday Monday on Thanksgiving weekend. Not one bit.

I have asked myself these same questions. What is the ultimate goal? Manage or improve quality? Total numbers/numbers per county or area/points of the bucks? Or maybe all of the above but what is it compared against? Total hunters? If the total numbers are the goal then stiff enforcement is the only thing that will help and even then there will always be “outlaws” of specific data for quality purposes is the goal then pick and percentage of the total and run with it. Data is data

Never know. It could be pretty close to accurate. I'm sure that there were more than that just because based on feedback on here, not everyone is participating. If there were 3,000 reported, maybe there really were 5000-7000 killed in that 3 day period but that's still not very many considering the number of people that probably hunted over the holiday weekend. At least in the south central part of the state, there was not a wholesale slaughter for sure. I hunted Camden from Friday until Sunday and heard a grand total of 3 rifle shots. Would normally hear 25-30. Ran by Venison creations Saturday night after I came out, to talk to someone and not much at all being brought in while I was there. Iron Bowl, heavy fog in the mornings, relatively warm temps and a full moon probably had a lot to do with the low numbers.

Landowners who sell timber, in my area anyway, have to come up with a timber management plan for 20(?) years. Normally if a consultant is used, they do it. It just lays out a plan and steps that you plan to take in regenerating the timber. Maybe a timber person on here can explain it better. But this sounds like what y'all are asking for. A plan that details the goals of wildlife management over a set period.

I haven't heard the shooting or seen the numbers of hunters in several years. I just contributed it to a sharp decline in our deer population.

If the DCNR wants me to game check my deer, I’m going to do it. I don’t know if it’s going to give them useful info or not but it doesn’t take me but 30 seconds so I’ll comply. I do know that I paid $45.10 to hunt this year and have over 100,000+ acres of public land within 45 minutes of my house. I could pay $2000 and join a club and have WAY more rules and regulations to deal with than I do hunting public land. I guess what I’m saying is that I feel like what the DCNR is asking of me is pretty uninvasive and minuscule and I support their efforts.

Just because you don't believe it doesn't make it false. At one time people though the earth was flat too I am not saying it is spot on, but without any further evidence it could be anywhere from really close to way off. At this point all we can know for sure is what is happening on the land we hunt because without the State being willing to enforce GC it will always be flawed due to the overwhelming outlaw mentality of the average Alabama hunter it seems.

You can get a ton of information from surveys and numbers like the game check. I don’t know what they could do with it but there are really smart people who can. There’s probably been thousands of research papers written on participation of surveys and game check like deals where they can get a good idea what the real participation is. There’s a professor or somebody in Alabama that could do more than you could think with them numbers

IMO it's silly to believe that's accurate for a Thanksgiving weekend, the second weekend of the firearms season.

Doggone it. If only we had taxidermists taking mandatory "harvest" confirmation number logs to help with all these outlaw hunters. By golly, THAT would solve it. Until it didn't and something else had to be mandated.


Six hours after the last update on the total we now are at 18,417 - meaning all afternoon 255 deer were reported in the last six hours for the entire state. That's 42 an hour. Pretty steady.

What a lot of folks have wanted to know for 3+ years is how, specifically, this data will be used.

Not "we'll make changes as needed" or something nebulous. Some folks want specifics spelled out about what can-could-would-will be done with it and when.

As the old saying goes “ follow the money”.

What money?

You know what they say

The money you’ll soon be paying to buy a tag to hunt deer in bama. Ole chucky is seeing dollar signs now and has a plan in place, won’t be long. Think of the money he could pocket at $10 per deer tag.

Hahahaha!!! Chuck seeing dollar signs in a tagging system. Seriously? Really. Think about it.

On Monday, Nov. 26, the total number was 18,162

Today it is 26,243


48 does killed on the SOAs. There ain't gonna be any deer left for anyone in the future!

https://game.dcnr.alabama.gov/Report/State/Deer

Dec 12th 2016 29,970
Dec 12th 2017 24,351

I'm just glad that there has only been 350 + - deer killed in Wilcox county this season so far. If that keeps up there might just be one or two left for "seed" next year. I am concerned about the much higher number in Dallas though since I also hunt there.

In all seriousness, who knows what the real number is. Has Chuckie and the crew run a comparison by license number to see how many different licensed hunters are actually checking deer and how many are supposedly not killing/checking anything? I'd bet that if 26K deer have been killed and checked, they've probably all been checked in by the same group of 3000-7000 licensed hunters. With only the kill data being provided, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered with regard to what's actually getting killed and the validity of the numbers provided. If you've got 26K deer killed and reported by 25K separate/individual hunters, we've got a real population problem and people arent getting the opportunities. If you've got 26k deer killed and reported by the same 3000 hunters, we got a real reporting problem and the actual harvest is exponentially higher than the number reported.

That’s actually a really good thought and one I haven’t considered.

Dec 12th 2016 -- 29,970

Dec 12th 2017 -- 24,351

Dec 12th 2018 -- 26,243

Thanks for the prior years' numbers, Squadron.

Going to abolt300's point, it may well be the same small group of hunters reporting. Possibly a segment of them were among the ones reporting voluntarily, too, and the reporting group hasn't grown much larger in the last 2.5 years.

If so, that would indicate a lot of hunters don't know about GC or are ignoring it for whatever reason.