I’ve seen 2 racked bucks all season, haven’t hunted as much as I usually do but sightings are definitely down, plenty of does and little ones and not many bucks on cameras either and there should of been plenty that made it through last season.

Had 9 five plus year old deer on camera on my 256. Thats strong on a 1000! Last year i had 1 shooter and shot him at end of season and A stud i had history with showed up the last week - So i ended up having 2 shooters! So i am having by far my best year ever and its not close.

After struggling with worst winds of my career last year - i am gettin more of the same. Swirlers or winds not good for clark. Could not hunt yesterday or today. Get that all time. Added 2 make shift stands to make it easier to hunt north winds. One in road and one in the hardwoods

Its swirling today so no stand will work

I'm just like Y'all, I liked it alot better when I was the only one hunting over corn and wasn't taxed for it. This is kinda like nil for hunting

If you don't have any 4+ year old bucks then apparently.... you aren't shooting enough does.


We need one of the resident Biologists to jump in here and set ya'll straight. You need to blast everything you see from now until the end of season and a Black Painter might drop off a 4 year old buck when he's letting out a Bigfoot.

F-in stupid.

There hasn’t been a buck shot on the 400 acres I hunt since 2017. The neighbors kill them all before they reach maturity. I have 2 4 year old 6 points and a 3 year old 8 point I hope make it to next year but it’s not very likely. Neighbors asked me the other day if I had seen anything decent and complained because they weren’t and all they had killed were baskets…. There’s your problem! if you do that year after year your always going to have the same results. Had a 3 year old 9 point in the yard every afternoon last year and they blasted him the first day he crossed the line in season. SMH

You shoulda painted landlines better that way they'll know where they are and not go over there. That's been said on here many times as well.

Also F-in stupid.

I hope you had a conversation with your neighbor about why theyre only killing basket racks.

"I think we should just kill more does and that will 'stir up the bucks' and we will see a lot more mature bucks"

I wonder if anyone is still saying this

The best buck properties seem to always have a ton of deer, including does.

You ain’t kidding. Now it’s like everyone has the answers to the test.

Yep, way down.

Nope. Corn plus cams plus long seasons plus broken up land ownerships. It’ll never go back. Deer don’t live long enough to see maturity.

What is a mature buck?

Anything bigger than a spike

Another good year for us. We had 9-10 that we thought were shooters. We've killed 5 of those plus 1 we had not seen. Still have 2 of the original group showing up occasionally and a couple new ones now that rut is heating up. We've killed 1 doe and need to kill about 9 more. Combined (3 of us) we have sat probably 40 hunts. Multiple deer seen every sit except 1, last Sunday Morning. There were 2 dogs running around in the woods.

It is really off at our club in west Alabama. We are lacking bucks and does. The difference is dramatic. I sat on a field yesterday where in a normal year, I would see 16-25 deer with 6-10 being bucks of various size. I saw one doe and one spike. It has been like that all year. We very rarely shoot does - like two last year. I have one shooter on camera. We normally kill several 130+ class deer. Scratching our head.

No
Buck numbers seem the same

We haven’t hunted much at all though. They are still in pre season mode

My land in Wilsonville has definitely dropped off from last year. I think due to construction and more fencing surrounding my property. Went for first club hunt today in Tallapoosa. Last year by this date, 7 decent bucks harvested, this year,…two. Something is vastly different this year.

I think the run on scooping up the small properties has kinda played out like a gold rush……It didn’t all happen in year one…….We’ve had a few years of people searching them out and leasing them or getting permission and the number of small properties being hunted has grown each year……..During that process more and more young bucks have gotten hammered until it has finally caught up with us and you have a noticeable drop off in numbers and age structure……I still don’t think the whole cycle and impact is over yet though…… Doe killing has been ramping up too in a lot of places

Well, if we recruit more hunters, sell more liscenses, blah,blah,blah itll only get worse. Need to teach some kids to take up golf