Close Matt but end it the 2nd Saturday in January up here however it falls on the calendar.
Every one of us would change it somehow to suit how we like/want/need to hunt. Its human nature to want it that way. Other than shutting it down completely the 2nd Saturday, and without specific dates to allow for the southern guys to hunt the rut, I would propose this common sense approach.
#1 allow all residents who have a valid hunting license to vote on 3 proposals for season dates. Majority wins whether the rest like it or not. Use data for a 3 year period
and re-vote. A) Leave it alone B) Change it to this C) Change it to that
#2 Tag system for Bucks and does state wide. (2 Buck limit if you ask me and non residents get 1 Buck /1 Doe.)
Doe tags issued for a set amount per region based off density data. Landowner depredation tag system. Additional tags may be purchased for other zones. Ex: Im
in zone D, I get 1 doe tag, but I can purchase a tag in other zones approved for multiple doe tags. Say I go to Selma and they are approved for +2, I can kill two
more does to help my buddy manage his place.
#3 Shorten the season state wide maybe by implementing a split season.
I looked at several scenarios here but a shortened primitive weapons season and then a closed season prior to Rifle makes sense.
[/qmuss?

I like the voting idea

Eliminate all baiting and make it a felony and MASSIVE fine it you are caught doing it. Night hunting and trespassing the same and carry a minimum of 12 months in jail.
Hire 3x more wardens to actually enforce the laws on the books
Crossbows are not bows, and todays muzzleloaders are no longer primitive weapons. Want to hunt with them, fine, you can do it in the regular gun season.
North zone back to ending Jan 31st. Dont know anything about zone C but if Brock says it needs to end on Jan 10th, I'd take his recommendation.
Cut 30 days out of the season in every zone, whenever it makes sense based on that particular zone.
South Zone Example: Bow season opens on the Oct 15th and is open anytime the season is open. South zone gun season starts third Sat in November and runs until the end of November. All deer hunting shuts down completely at midnight on Nov 30th and remains closed until Jan 1, then opens back up on Jan 1 and runs through Feb 10th.
No point restriction, but bucks must have a minimum 14" spread. (Exception for first buck or kids less than 15) This would at least get the majority of AL bucks into the 3 yr old age class and protect almost all of the typical Alabama 1-2 yr olds.
Tags are issued with your license. Snap in plastic, numbered, year color and year date, non-reusable. Deer in possession, with no tag permanently affixed, get your gun or bow taken and smacked in the wallet with an additional $1000 fine on top.
Tracking is a business. Those doing it need to be known. Licenses issued to trackers allowing them to track and dispatch deer. All deer must be tagged with hunters tag. Make it illegal to refuse access to someone tracking a legally wounded deer using a licensed tracker outside of legal hunting hours. Property owners must be notified and dog must be on leash if you are not on property with permission to run.
Stick with 3 bucks per hunter and limit hunters to 3 does per season (or less if needed in a particular low density area).
DMAP is available for large properties (1000 acres or more, private or leased) that need the ability to harvest additional animals for herd health reasons. Property specific additional tags issued based on biologists recommendation taking into account surrounding factors.


In 3-5 years you would not recognize the deer herd or the hunting quality in AL, compared to where it is today.

Im all about long seasons and no hassle but the bottom line is you cant have all of the following and expect the hunting experience in Alabama to get better.

1. Basically 4 month season
2. No enforcement of what is being killed.....game check dont help
3. Legalized baiting
4. Open doe season
5. No age or horn restrictions....refer to #2

I dont know how you fix this problem but I personally know of multiple locations where someone has less than 10acres and every time a deer with bone showing above the hairline walks in front of the cell camera they walk out the door and nail it.
And a family with a few kids can do this a lot of times and stay legal. As of today....in central alabama the bucks are searching for last minute does and they are also hungry. My cameras tell me that they are goin from one corn pile to the next and covering at least a mile every day and that is data from an 8000acre block. If this was happening in an area where the land is fragmented which it is there would be nothing left....which is the case in a lot of places from what I am hearing.

Therein lies the biggest issue.

Can we get a Southern U podcast titled… “if Matt Brock was Director of AL DCNR”?

First off, I have a very hard time believing that anyone's total deer population has decreased by 80% in the past couple years. They may not be seeing 12 does in a herd on a single field (which is probably too many) in an evening but I would be willing to bet their population has not dropped by that much. More than likely the herd is still at a healthy number for the area but they aren't seeing them concentrated because everyone else around them is feeding now. The deer have more options. So, here we will go with "everyone with a piece of ground shouldn't be feeding because I'm not seeing the numbers I did before". "They've all been killed!!!!" Maybe, just maybe, the herd for the AREA is just fine but small landowner is now seeing part of the deer that were only previously seen by big landowner with the funds to keep them there.
Secondly, define this 80% drop. Are we talking about going from 100 to 20 on 500 acres or from 10 to 2 on 10 acres? It matters based on the size of the property and the sustainability of the habitat in that area. Maybe an 80% drop is a good thing. I know places where it would be.

Bottom line is that, no matter what law is passed or rule is implemented, somebody is going to complain if it isn't "their way". Over the past few years hunters have gone from being "real men of the woods" to total whine bags looking for an easy button.

It's like clockwork. As season draws to an end everybody starts declaring (matter of factly) that we've killed off the deer population.

Yep....I’m also hearing it from folks in places where I wasn’t expecting to though……Places that I expected would be some of the most buffered from the impacts…..Its not the case though…..Need to start looking at deer management on a bigger scale than just individual properties….. Just for example, I think you can increase the doe harvest 50% county wide in Bullock Co and impact everyone…....I really think the whole southeastern quadrant probably just saw a population decline…….

You know if 100-dollar bills were floating down from heaven, somebody would find fault with it.

Every. Single. Year.

No one can tell you what the actual number of deer living in an area is. I’ve asked for numbers several times and never got an answer. All I got was more percentages. A percentage mean absolutely squat is you do not have a number to base the percentages on. Our kill numbers are down this year but it’s not because of lack of deer. It’s because most of us killed deer other places and didn’t need or want to just kill a deer. We were after certtdeer and some of us got them. But again I cannot tell you the exact number of deer we have on our place or area so I can’t tell if we saw 9% of the herd or 90% of the herd. I know I saw enough to keep me going back next year if non residents are still allowed to lease land and purchase licenses. 🤦🏼‍♂️

Marsh you bring up an interesting topic. How is the State determining herd size? I am a landowner in Mobile, Baldwin, and Hale counties, hunt public land from Walker county on down the west side of the state and I have never seen a true attempt at determining how many deer we do have. Phone and Internet surveys are known to be flawed and man day versus harvest on public land is not a usable metric. I’d like to know how they are making their decisions.

Lol you have no idea what you are talking about I don't hunt with anyone but myself. Kinda sounds like you are a little jealous Chucks Nut Cleaner... All them numbers are fuckn with your brain it's sad.

Our bucks are acting that way. We had an up and coming 3 year old shot this morning by a club member. 🤦🏻‍♂️ not his first offense. Probably his last year with us.

When you live in an area where the DCNR says there's 25 deer per square mile, and you're looking at 27 deer (on a half acre in your back yard) then clearly the other 639.5 acres has no deer.

Apparently not if you own land inside the Pelham city limits

That number is an average and includes heavily populated areas so yeah you are right it evens out.

And lease prices will be 100 per acrea.

Stop use of dogs for hunting purposes. (tracking ok)
2 buck limit thats enforceable

It would be a lot shorter.