I’m familiar with that area…..There's a lot more small properties with fragmented habitat as compared to say Russell or Bullock Co………Montgomery Co has a much higher rate of 5,10, 20 acre hunters or even 40-100 acre hunters…..Its a lot more diced up with less big, big properties….Put your finger in the center of town on Google Earth…go out in any direction and someone is sitting over a corn pile in just about every woodlot you can put your finger on……

That’s where your impact is coming from…..A corn pile in every wood lot and the back of every cow pasture has a lot more folks getting a slice of the pie……Sure there’s still a good deer population there but it’s likely less than it used to be for some or maybe most….Its being reduced from a lot of deer to a moderate amount…..Instead of seeing 25 per sit the norm becomes 10-15……..then 5-8…..That’s how that works……

I’m just saying, if this is what you see happening then there’s a good explanation for it…….People arent just deer watching…..There was an additional 1000 deer game checked last year in Montgomery Co in a county that was averaging around 3100…..That’s a lot of extra……For some reason southeast Alabama hunters slayed the does last year…..I have a couple theories as to why

My guys and gals killed 6 deer this past weekend. The first hunts of the season. They killed 4 does. 115lbs, 107lbs, 96lbs and 82lbs. 2 bucks were killed. A kid killed his first and it was a 95lb spike and another guy that is 70yrs old killed is first buck ever. 135lb 6pt. That was a great trip but I fussed at them. As soon as they each killed a deer they pretty much stopped shooting. I would have liked the to kill a couple more does. They wanted to shoot bucks only after they killed their does. Hopefully we can kill a few more next week when we go up to camp. Judging by the numbers of does and yearlings seen, we need to take a few more out.

I predict that this years numbers will be just as worthless as all the previous years

So far this has been a great year in our area. More large bucks at every processor than ever. I'm seeing more deer and larger bucks myself.

I predict that many counties are going to have a trend line that looks like this………



Just like the green line for does on this chart back when we had the two per day doe slaughter……Something to notice is that there’s a point where doe harvest numbers come back down and match the same total as before the slaughter began…..What we all know to be true though is that even though harvest totals may be the same… the deer population post doe slaughter was not……The same thing is currently happening again……but this time its bucks and does that are taking the hit. The doe slaughter situation had some self-correction that took place once folks finally wised up to what was happening…..The current situation is not the same though from that standpoint.

CNC - What are your theories why more does were taken in Montgomery County?

Not CNC but my theory is because hunters wanted to shoot them in the early season either for management purposes or for meat in the freezer. Or just because they walked out and it’s legal to shoot them. No science behind my theory. Just my way of thinking.

I think it’s a combination of a few different things……Unless the state started changing the way they count hunters when they started selling baiting permits then we saw a pretty decent increase in the total amount of hunters…..The data showed an increase from about 200K hunters up to 230K……Its likely that many of those extra hunters came from out of state and if so then you would expect that to have a greater impact on south Alabama counties…..So that’s one aspect…..I think more hunters have been packed in….

Secondly, I think after baiting was first legalized that we probably had a 2-3 year time frame where we thinned down the buck herd as the corn put more deer in front of trigger fingers……Once these hunters thinned down the bucks then you likely had folks who started looking around not realizing what had happened and started talking about how there were too many does for the amount of bucks they were seeing…..So you probably got a lot of folks reacting to having less bucks by thinking they need to shoot does to fix it……To go along with that you probably also have some of these smaller acreage folks that have stopped having the same opportunities to kill a good buck that they did have so they switch to filling that “tag” with a doe instead…..Maybe they want to kill 2-3 deer for the freezer and instead of 1 being a buck now all three are does…..

I think its probably a combination of those things……

Well we are almost 2 months into season. I have been a total of 2 mornings and a few evenings taking the kids. I don't know if any of yall remember when they interviewed Junior Samples when he caught the world record bass lol. One statement he made was profound (Work interferes with my fishing) I am about ready to get after them . Seen several trapping yesterday evening.

CNC - Where did you get those maps with deer harvest? Very interesting! I would like to follow that as time goes on.

I'm making them using an Excel spreadsheet and Game Check

It's been about the norm at the house kill a mature buck early in gun season. I've seen one other mature buck that came out late on me I should have shot. We are still a couple weeks away from the rut. Me or my wife will probably kill 1-2 more mature bucks by early January then I'll fish the rest of deer season

Do the percentage numbers being in red indicate negative from the long term reported kill like accountants use red for negative and black for positive?

Not necessarily……It’s just the current harvest compared to the 4-year average …… For example the average buck harvest for the last 4 years in Montgomery Co is 1839 bucks…….There has been 289 reported as of yesterday which is 15% of that total and what you're looking at on the map

OK thanks for the clarity

Gosh Blount is showing 80% on does. You mean to tell me that they have reported 80% of their doe kill vs the reported kill from the last 4 years? Oh wait, it’s Blount County my wife is from there and her family and the neighbors shot every thing they saw.

They’re in zone C……They only have about 2 weeks left of either sex gun season ……To be honest though I’m not sure if hunters there even know its not doe season right now…..Their doe numbers have been steadily going up despite doe season not even being open…..Maybe folks are shooting them with bows……

Could be that. Or could be people turning in bucks as does. Cause there is no limit on does and three a season for bucks. So just wait until they get to processor report as doe then they have a number to give to processor.