Matt……..Here’s what I kinda feel like I’m hearing you say concerning the matter…….Imagine if were looking at north Alabama on a GIS buffer map and the highest density areas are represented by bright red and the lower densities by green with yellow in the middle, etc…….you know what I’m talking about………

What I see happening is a “drawing down” occurring where the green gets smaller, more yellow becomes green, yellow shrinks and so on……That’s what all of these big increases over the last three years in north Alabama are showing happening. When you talk about these good properties with good densities, you’re standing in the middle of the red looking around saying “Everything is fine!!”……meanwhile the world around you is shrinking……that’s the far more important concern. If you let it shrink enough then everyone will eventually see the impact.

Through extending the season and allowing baiting we’ev been given the “freedom” to draw down the deer herd as much as the hunters will pull the trigger and north Alabama is at a disadvantage due to fragmentation……That’s whats causing the differences in the numbers……baiting's impact due to fragmentation and hunter density.

CNC- late to this thread- humor me with a definition of Land Fragmentation. I hunt SE of Union Springs- our total harvest was off but most of that was trigger restraint on immature bucks and fewer does taken . We don't bait during season. Only use cameras for pre gun and after season inventory( fancy word for " what is out there" ).

Think average parcel size. South east of union springs = big landowners & big chunks of land. From Birmingham north = a whole lot more landowners and smaller parcels.

The average 2k acre section in an unpopulated area of the blackbelt might consist of 10 landowners. The average 2kacre section of Blount county might consist of 50 landowners.

Many more hands in the cookie jar in Blount county, and corn has allowed them to each chum up a couple of deer.

Exactly…….^^^^…….And when it comes to being impacted by these other variables…..Stickers you will be one of the last in line.

Gotcha. See the point now- thanks.

.......and it’s not JUST north Alabama that has fragmentation of properties and habitat. This concept exists all across the state. When I walk out my door here in Auburn properties and habitat are fragmented around the outskirts of town and as you move outward……Extreme southeast Alabama around Enterprise and Dothan for example has the landscape fragmented by habitat changes. Fragmentation exists all over….it just impacts some areas more than others…..North Alabama is fragemented on a very large scale…….Baiting is likely gonna have a similar impact in all of these places where properties or habitat get broken up into smaller pieces. Its going to draw the populations down in these areas until this level of harvest stops being sustainable or hunters stop pulling the trigger. When it comes to hoping for the latter to happen, most folks in fragmented areas are just at the mercy of their neighbors when there's a free for all going on……The southwest portion of the state is where the least amount of fragmentation exists.

CNC, are you referencing having different property owners as "fragmented" areas? Or are you talking strictly landscape?

It’s both OlTimer. North AL is far more developed and urban than central and parts of south AL. Land ownership up here is considerably different than the bottom half of the state.

Yep both………In many places they go hand in hand with one another……….but you may have a little blend of each situation happening from one area to another…….The smaller parcel sizes is what will have the most impact but even in areas where land ownership is a little bigger but deer habitat is reduced to smaller patches, I think you’re likely still gonna see some impact.

A good example is the area from Tallassee to Eclectic……The area is mostly cow pastures with interspersed blocks of deer habitat. There’s a limited amount of area for deer production but now that everyone can bait basically where ever……those limited deer get spread out and shot around any and every given pasture or back yard coming to corn. I’ve tracked a lot of deer in that area and others like it where people are hunting in spots that really wouldn’t have been productive without the corn pile.

Are they killing these deer at night? I ask because it’s been said on here that baiting makes the deer go nocturnal. I so confused. I don’t know what to believe.

Some counties are now up to 23% of the harvest occurring in Feb.......That's crazy to think that 1/4 of the entire years harvest has occurred in 10 days

I can believe it in Baldwin County. We are 12 miles from the gulf and our rut is really hot in February.

Alright it may change slightly but these are gonna be pretty close to the final numbers……I’ll make two maps again…..This first map is going to be this year’s harvest totals compared to two season ago, the first year baiting was legalized……Again, if you recall it was reported that the harvest that season was a 14% increase over the prior year. So basically what we’re looking at is the comparison to that increase year. If you’ll notice the counties that are showing the greatest increases are the ones that are the most fragmented while the least fragmented are the ones leveling back off to pre-baiting levels. I’ll create and post the other map when I get back from tracking tomorrow.

Riddle me this. If the southwest portion of the state is the least fragmented, in theory it should be the least affected by “baiting”. Why are the counties in the southwest black belt (historically the highest deer densities in the state) pretty much the only counties on your map that are down on harvest this year. They are still being hunted just like they have been in previous years, so the harvest should at least be equal, or in fact higher, due to all the “corn”.

Why do you think that is???........I'll give my answer when I get back from playing in the rain.

Larger properties with less hunters per square mile and more area for deer to get away from pressure. Which I will agree with to an extent. I know on our property that once you shoot a couple deer at a corn pile, you can pretty much put an X on that spot for a long time. Same thing with the food plots. That’s why we try to do the doe killing at the beginning of the season on bait and fields. I tend to believe that these small properties may kill a couple deer and then the deer wise up and avoid the baiting area during the daylight. That’s my opinion. I don’t think the deer up north would be any dumber then the ones in the south. If anything, I think they would be way smarter because of so many people hunting them. We have a pretty good size piece of property and we know that if we get more then 5-6 people hunting at one time, the deer sightings go way down. Simply because of all the unusual activity. Once again that’s my opinion. Maybe I’m giving the deer to much credit.

I can agree to some extent with that Marsh, but with less hunters per square mile and more deer per square mile, our harvest rates should at least be remaining stable instead of dropping 10% each successive year. Also with corn going on it’s 3rd or 4th year of being legal, if CNCs theory is true, the numbers in the “fragmented” areas should be going down by now and showing the effects of over harvest. Instead, all the supposedly fragmented area’s harvests are going up each year and the numbers in the supposedly unfragmented areas with lower hunter pressure and more deer, have been consistently dropping for three years in a row.

CNC, You want change but the only change you can come up with is restrictions on the length of the season? Get your graphs together and go to the CAB meeting and lobby against the baiting. Baiting seems to be what is causing the problems that you continuously speak of.

I’m all for just going back to the 80’s and 90’s. Doe days and no buck limits. Deer hunting was a heck of a lot more fun back then.

I know one person that owns 5 acres close to town off a main highway that backs up to large woods. He has one little feeder spot just out of sight of his house and main road. They have killed 6 bucks off that one feeder this year. How many people are doing the same thing? How do you control it? I don’t know the answer but stuff like that is killing the overall hunting experience in a lot of places.

So here is what is happening………Those counties you see in southwest Alabama in the least fragmented areas are not really “down” per se………If we look at the numbers for the last four years they are running about the same this year as they did last year and the year prior to baiting being legalized…..They simply had a one year spike in harvest the first year baiting was passed and then went back to fairly normal levels.

Instead of those counties being down……what you’re actually looking at is the other counties still being “up” from the intial spike……and the most fragmented counties being drastically up……Make no mistake about it, there is a crash coming for these places as the populations get drawn down and these levels stop being sustainable.

Look at this way, if went back to around the year 2000 and I started making these same charts right after they enacted the two doe per day rule……would you look at the increasing harvest rates that occurred afterwards as a positive??......What eventually happened?? The same thing is occurring now post baiting law and its impacting the fragmented areas much more substantially.