Does need to be managed on a county level in my opinion….……Really if each county was divided up into four quadrants and you managed it at a ¼ county level that would be more optimal but we can make it work on a county level scale and it doesn’t even require the government to do anything…….Landowners could group together and do it on their own……Here’s the idea……

Many counties are only in the 400-500K acre range……Its basically like each county is its own Texas Ranch from a size perspective……And just like if we were going to manage that Texas ranch we would have a goal number of does to come off of that ranch each season for “population control” and we wouldn’t be too picky about taking them out perfectly evenly across the whole range……We would want to make sure that we take out 1500 or 2000 or whatever number keeps the deer herd at our goal level overall…….As long as the doe harvest is somewhat semi evenly spread out across the range then that would be plenty good enough……The same concept really applies to each county as well…..We need to take out “X” amount within each county and it doesn’t really matter so much that every individual 100 acre or 500 acre parcel is micro-managed…..

So if we look at each one of our 67 counties as if each one is its own “ranch” then we see that many of them are having issues with needing to kill 2000 does and instead their killing 2900……..or they’re needing to kill 1200 and they’re killing 1800 instead….etc…etc..……The point being that a lot of our counties are NOT having a problem with hunters killing too few does……….Many are having an issue controlling folks killing too many and keeping populations below what they should be……

Therefore an easy way to correct that issue is to start getting landowners to form cooperatives within each county where they “don’t shoot does” until the numbers go back down to the range where we want it for each county……The cooperative controls the harvest from the other end of the spectrum so to speak to prevent too many from being killed…..As long as other folks are shooting the “X” number that’s the goal for the county then the cooperative continues to not shoot any does……It would just about put “population control” for each county completely in the hands of the cooperative landowners and prevent overharvest from occurring….You could simply watch the state’s Game Check data each year along with local county level observations to make decisions for the group……I think this is basically what’s occurring in the plantation belt right now……

Ever considered golf?

I’ve played a few dozen times for fun over the years……I always had a slice off the tee but I learned to go with it and just aim left…….Well I met up with a bunch of family one year in Panama City and a cousin of mine who plays all the time wanted me another cousin to go play a round with him and his buddy…..who also plays a bunch……So the very first tee I’m thinking about my slice and I set up aiming left like always…….and BAAAMMMM!!!.....I absolutely crushed one!!....... straight as an arrow……right off into a bunch of condos down the left side……the ball just disappeared over a roof…….My cousin just looked at me…….WTF was that man!?!?… …Me: Ooops....I was playing the slice!


That tickles the chit out of me thinking back on it…….

That would be a much more effective management plan than the current one, but I can't imagine what it would cost to pull off and the red tape that it would generate.

Paraphrase

How so??......It would simply be someone forming a “cooperative” within the county just like Matt always promotes…..It would just be doing so with a little different idea in mind…… I mean it really wouldn’t have to be anything real sophisticated…..All your trying to do is get enough people on board with “not shooting” does to have a controlling impact……Someone knowledgeable could come up with a goal range for game check doe harvest levels and only have the cooperative shoot if harvest drops below said range with an accompanying observed population rise…etc…….If any adjustments needed to be made to address too many deer it would be made by the cooperative going from shooting none to “shooting a few” if needed……

I think you can look at what’s happened over the last 5 years and the corresponding numbers to form a good basis for where that range should be set for many counties…..For example I’d probably set Bullock Co initially with a goal range of 1900-2100 does for a starting point or something like that…..Things seemed ok when it was running in that range…..We know now that 2900 was probably way too many…….”Membership” to the don’t shoot any does club could be real informal…..

The deep end is but a distant memory, isn't it?

How are you going to get that many land owners and hunters to agree on anything?

If you sit back and give it some thought this actually works out well for a lot of hunters because now those guys out there who want to “fill the freezer” can fill away just as long as you have enough cooperative members to off set the totals and you still fall out around the harvest range goal for the county…..A win-win……

Educate them!

In all seriousness…..with the path we’ve gone down over the last couple of decades with the two a day doe slaying and now the recent increase in doe killing and drop off in populations in some areas, etc……I don’t think it would be too hard to convince some folks to roll with a new skrategy……..especially in a county like Bullock or Macon where it only takes the right 15 or 20 landowners to account for a lot of ground within the county…….You really probably wouldn’t have to have that many folks participating approaching it from this angle………

I like the part where the deer know not to cross the county lines, or the inner county lines.

Getting county / areas in counties specific data has never been tried as far as I know. If there was a way to do that ( again, expensive and mountains of red tape ) then you could actually know HOW to manage the deer. As far as cooperatives go I love the idea of it. But unless there's some sort of law or fine associated with any management profile, I don't see it being effective statewide.

Iowa does it. One county may allow 3000 does, the neighbor county may allow 1500 some 0 some 150. Allowed two bucks a season state wide

Interesting idea. I'm just not sure how killing does in Gardendale, Pinson, Leeds, and Hoover is going to help the herd management in Bessemer.

Ohio does it. Wisconsin does it and has for decades. It's a matter of what you grew up with, whether the hunting community (i.e., landowners-hunters-leasers) can agree or compromise, and then actually do it. It also invoves whether the majority of hunters want it or if only a few loud ones endlessly yammering about something want it and yammer at the right people.

Ohio does it in two-year cycles. I think maybe Wisconsin does the same. Other states do it, too. It's based on their mandatory deer check numbers and adjusting the season bag limits. The next two years in Smith County, Ohio, you might have a season limit of up to 4 does. "Up to" doesn't mean "have to." And then after review and such, the next two years may be the same. Or it may be three, or two or whatever. Not sure but I think maybe Arkansas does it with their 473 zones and sub-zones.

It's not difficult, even in states with a lot of counties, IF the data to be used is legitimate and scientifically trustworthy. It usually is in states where not tagging and reporting bucks and does carries a stiff penalty.

It should be matter of whether it's biologically necessary and answer the foremost question: "will this help or hurt the species?" But as we know, that usually takes a back seat in many states to politics, good ol' boy bullchit in the back rooms, and influence from "avid hunters" and specially invited friends of the department in secret meetings with state officials instead of the common man.

Y’all are off in left field…….I’m not talking about the state doing anything……I’m talking about a group of private clubs and landowners forming a cooperative……The only thing that involves the state is borrowing their data

You know good and well the people of Alabama ain't gonna cooperate with your idea.

I understand that. But in my opinion if it's done on a voluntary or cooperative basis that it wouldn't work. You would only be growing deer for your neighbors. If you had several large tracts of land joining one another and all parties were on board then that would be beneficial for your immediate area, but I don't even think that would help on the county level.

One of the best things about this approach is that you don’t need everyone to subscribe to it or understand it…….you just need ENOUGH folks to where everyone else can still have their opinions and do as they please but just not have the ability to mess things up as bad…….They can fill the freezers……”manage” does……yada, yada, yada....for whatever reason……just as long there’s enough people who DON’T….so that the county totals stay below a level where we want them

I'm skeptical that you'd have enough participation to make much of an impact on the county level.

Not shooting does is a pretty easy thing to do… Quite a few of the plantations have virtually already done this even if it isnt in a fully organized form like I’m laying it out……Many of them shut down doe harvest this year across large acreages and doe harvest levels came way down…..So now if doe harvest levels stay at 1900 ish does for Bullock County and 1400 ish for Macon and 2100 ish for Russell moving forward..…which is about what they were before the big increase…Is there any reason for the plantations to change course next year??.......I'm gonna say probably not.....Somebody has to compensate for all the extra slaying and "managing"

Don’t get me wrong when I say “don’t shoot any does”…..I’m not meaning that as in completely zero does …..Its meaning no “quotas” where every club and plantation tries to take out 60 does here and 80 does there just to be taking them out………Shut that chit off as long as county wide harvests are sufficient enough to meet the county level goal……

Bpi is in line to the reality

Why not just manage your property.

You give them what they need and don’t shoot at every deer that walks out like most clubs do and you’ll see plenty of deer.

My neighbor has 60 acres and the does around my house are almost pets. But he don’t shoot at them every time they walk out.

Its really a bonus for a big club or landowner to have the other surrounding hunters "manage" the does……Shooting a bunch of does just to meet a quota adds a lot of extra hunting pressure to a property that doesn’t have to occur if the folks in the surrounding area are already shooting enough for everyone…..

I’m not sure you can develop a cookie cutter approach to deer cause “it depends” seem to be the greatest factor

It does depend. 😂

High Fence every county individually

You know this becomes a pretty simple formula of addition and subtraction once you get so many years of trend data on the books to look at for each county or “ranch”……Is the deer population down in the county??....Want to raise the population to higher levels??……SUBTRACT from the doe killing numbers…….If 1500 does have been getting killed annually then we need to reduce it to lets say 1200 and it doesnt really matter who "doesnt shoot them"………We overcomplicate the whole doe management thing way more than it has to be……

Here’s kinda what I think its gonna look like…….something along these lines anyways…..with each county having a different number for their yield….Let’s use Bullock Co doe harvest as an example…….Of course you would revisit these numbers periodically to see if they need tweaked

Increase Pop……………Hold Stable……………Decrease Pop
….< 1700…………….....1800 – 2200……………….>2200

The only way to effect that level of change is to have DOGE on a state level. I'd bet more money than I have that big insurance companies have more say in the deer limits than sound management practices. Heck, even the state biologist I had look at my lease pushed me to kill 15 doe's in 1 season, and then we could evaluate after they aged the jaw bones. You pull 15 doe's off 1050 acres, and you won't have much of a population to evaluate next season. Not with the deer densities we have right now. I wish I could tag mine to see how the move around the property.

This is also true. We aren't allowed to bait. Buy land next to a westervelt lease and start putting corn out and watch what happens. My former BIL used to raise deer. They would turn some out every year, and didn't kill any doe's. One of their neighbors killed 25 one season.

GWs have a hard enough time policing a county.. who is going to police the cooperatives?

Whatchu talkin bout Willis??.....Police them for what??

In what world is that "easy"? Anywhere I have hunted in Alabama, that conversation would go about like this: "Hey Bubba, listen I know the farmer let's you hunt the wheat field behind your Mama's house, but me and some other landowners have decided to form a cooperative, so you can't shoot every doe and spike that walks out in the field like you have been doing." Bubba: "Go to hell, F you, get off my Mama's porch."

Maybe you haven’t read far enough yet into the thread yet……Its completely voluntary…..I don’t think anyone is going around telling Bubba what he can do…..Actually the whole idea was to let Bubba fill his freezer and compensate for that by plantation X cutting back on their doe quota or eliminating it all together

Aint no way you get anything productive done on a daily basis

QDMA says there’s ya sign. A cooperative 👍🏼

You are delusional if you think the majority of hunters in Alabama can practice any type of common sense doe management, especially in hunting clubs.

One thing for an owner of a 2000 acre piece in central Alabama to do it. Is another for any size group in North Alabama to do it. Or anywhere in the state for that matter.

Take Lauderdale. There are areas of this county full of deer and areas that are not and they are all mixed together. I’m sure every county is similar especially up here.

I'm sure everyone who enters one of these fabled cooperatives would be an upstanding, up and up, no nonsense sportsman... no way ever that anyone would cheat the system, esp along property lines from the neighboring cooperatives.

But… it’s no different than… I mean it’s the same policing whether they are in a cooperative or not. I think maybe you are confused on what people mean by cooperative.

Maybe I did miss something?? I was under the assumption that cooperatives would attempt to hold themselves to a more stringent set of rules than what the state issues.

We’ve used cooperatives for years with unparalleled success. You have to in order to manage a deer herd properly. Few ppl own enough land to make it work without forming some type of cooperative.

But you can’t do it if anyone who impacts the others decides to go rogue.

I could see it working in areas with likeminded leases in a given area. Especially in areas that have leases that are 200 to 500 acres ( rough estimate ) in size that want to have quality deer. In areas like I'm in, with landowners who have 30 to 200 acres I'd have to believe it's more of an uphill climb. Not impossible, but probably less likely depending on the landowners.

A cooperative to not shoot does would be a lot easier to pull off than one trying to manage for big bucks

Maybe so. I had a nice 2 year old 6 point I let walk all season. He would have been a shooter this year if he made it and would have been a good buck for my area. He was like clockwork every single day. A neighbor ended up getting him with just a couple of days left in the season. Managing deer in an area with neighbors who don't is like pouring water in a bucket with no bottom. It's an exercise in futility.

“Maybe I did miss something?? I was under the assumption that cooperatives would attempt to hold themselves to a more stringent set of rules than what the state issues.“

Hold themselves is the key phrase. No extra work for game wardens.

I was leaning more towards the situation where the cooperative members "Hold themselves" until the last week or so of season when somebody in the cooperative decides they are going to do whatever they want and screw on their suppressor....