Also, when folks say there are “plenty” of deer or “no shortage”…..those are relative terms…….Plenty compared to what??.....That can vary a lot in the eye of the beholder…..Plenty compared to how many the land will actually support or plenty compared to what an individual hunter thinks is a bunch??.....To folks that don’t know any better, plenty may not be anywhere close to the actual potential

Eeeesh. I personally want to kill 10 bucks and only 2 does. That an issue?

Just wanting clarification on the posters wording. The way it’s worded would make someone think it’s a complaint on the 3 buck limit.

But since you ask that question, from a management standpoint on a statewide level, yes it’s an issue if every hunter had a 10 buck limit.

When you have deer trails that look like this criss crossing all over your property……that’s what “plenty” looks like to me....YMMV

Yeah I’m with you I was acting like a regular idiot that thought they should be able to just shoot all the bucks they wanted. Same page here.

Where I hunt (Private) in south alabama, it’s common to see 15-20 does in a field every afternoon. Guess it just depends on management plans and location.

When the deer started eating all the leaves off our peach trees they could reach late in the summer, that was plenty. Never seen them do that before a couple years ago. Peach leaves are not a desirable food source for deer, or wasnt till a couple years ago.

Hell there’s a lot of transgender deer being checked in that may be some of it.

Gotta have bucks to make baby deer just like you gotta have does to make baby deer.

I apologize, I guess I should have pre-declared that statement as sarcasm.

I apologize too, guess I should have asked " You serious Clark?"

I can actually kinda get on board with this. I have hunted in most areas of the State excluding SW AL. I have hunted in high hunter density with smaller land tracts and I have hunted in areas with only large tracts.

I'm gonna call it the corn crash as well I like that term. I have not looked at the data but I would expect areas with high hunter numbers and smaller land tracts to eventually begin to be impacted by hunting over corn. I would have expected that 3-5 years after corn implementation.

Anyone who thinks corn feeders don't make it easier to kill a deer buck or doe... is foolish. Be honest... y'all are not trophy hunting.

It will be really interesting to see if Alabama actually uses this Game Check data or if this really will just be a huge waste of time and money. What I would do is go by the numbers and if people aren't reporting their does then I would declare the population is down and put them on a doe days. Youi gotta send a message at some point or you will remain as irrelevant as you really are.

Heres how my hunting has changed in the last three years and it’s something to think about. Hogs have replaced deer in some of my freezer space.
I have pork breakfast sausage, pork specialty meats and pork cubes steak. Still have deer, but we haven’t killed as many does lately.
Just a FYI

I would also be interesting to see what the impact of Hogs really do have on all this. The DCNR knows where the areas are that are truly impacted by all these wild hogs. IMO there is sort of a "Hog Line". Lot of people have a few but it seems there is definitely a "front" like you would have in a military battle. I can draw a line in some areas and tell you that below this line there are more than "a few" there are literally so many you can't kill them all they just keep coming no matter how many you kill.

Exactly……what you would expect to happen would be for a pretty significant increase immediately following baiting being legalized followed by a crash 3-5 years afterwards…..then eventually your trend line stabilize at a new norm…..That’s exactly what’s happening. In simple terms your populations in these effected areas are going to be lower long term unless rules change or hunter attitude changes. After looking at what is occurring in places like Blount Co I don’t know how much implementing doe days will really help it…..They already have a pretty limited amount of time to shoot does and they’re going to see a 40% decrease this year. If we’re going to have a 3 buck limit then tags will have to be implemented too or it’s a useless rule…..Compliance right now is likely very low.

I think this is just the beginning of it and we’ll likely see further impacts over the next few years before we reach a new level of suck in the effected areas. I also think that they’ll be more areas impacted than just what we’re currently seeing….The concept that is playing out in North Alabama also occurs in other areas on a smaller scale.

I agree with what both of you are saying, but I think it has more to do with the extended doe season, then the corn. Weather anyone admits to it or not, people were hunting with corn way before it was legal. The baiting rule was so bs, 100 yards and out of sight, that no one went by it . The only time someone got a ticket for hunting over bait, was when gw was mad at them for something else or someone turned them in. And even then I don't believe it was enforced very much. When you kill a buck you kill one deer. When you kill a doe you kill not only her but all her off spring,AND here's the big one , the offspring her offspring would have produced. Just sit down with a pen and paper and draw a graph. Assume one doe would have twins and half those twins would be does having twins. That turns out to like 32 to 64 deer you take when you take one doe. Now I know that's not right because other factors influence that. But when someone shoots five does.........next year will be fine, five years down the road, not so much!

Growing up in the 60's and wanting to hunt, all we had in North Alabama were a few scattered deer. If you saw a deer track you called all your friends to come and see it. If you saw a deer, it was like laying eyes on Bigfoot! I grew up hearing hunters say that if you killed a doe, you was the lowest scum of the earth as they tried to increase deer numbers in North Alabama. In the 70's the deer population exploded and it got to where we were seeing deer almost everywhere. The 80's saw a spike in bowhunting and liberal doe limits because of the population numbers. I hunted the refuge here and saw deer on every hunt that I can remember. I don't think I ever climbed a tree and failed to see a deer.

There is a shift among all the folks I am close to now-they all want to kill a great deer and will not shoot a doe because it might mess up the area they are hunting. This is my thoughts as well. That doe might be in heat and bring a giant by me come the rut. I only kill one buck a year but I still enjoy being outside hunting but would kill another one if he was one I was going to mount. I have no desire to kill a doe and if you are on my property and kill a doe, you will never be back on it again-period! Killing does is what I like to see young hunters do, especially young girls who seem to now enjoy hunting more than the boys. When we have the youth hunt week, I have at least 10 students call or come by the office to tell me about what they shot. I love to hear these stories.

I am all about seeing deer, and I lose interest in an area if I am not seeing anything. I have no trouble letting deer walk, even good deer. I know my ideas are different than a lot of folks, but I could care less about someone telling me they killed 10 does this year. Tell me you killed a good one and show me his picture. Save the little ones for the little ones.

I think yotes have had a bigger impact on deer population decline than most hunters want to admit. We've always had a high deer density at our place, but saw a big drop in yearling sightings 3 years ago. However, after 3 years of trapping yotes we've seen a big increase in yearlings and does. In addition, our turkey population has exploded due to trapping coons and 2 controlled burns.

There have been way more bucks killed this year in our area from what I've seen and that's also what the local processors are saying. And out of these buck a lot of them are 3.5 plus years old. This may have something to do with it.

I have been thinking about this for a while. This season has been different. Deer were nocturnal early, and I blamed it on the hot weather making them feed at night. We also had a good acorn crop. I have looked at 1000s 0f pictures and not seen anything bigger than a 4 point. I sometimes think I am being out corned. Deer stopped showing up much in late Dec. I did see some cow horns pestering does around the feeders and I found 1 small scrape. I hunted a few times in Dec. and have not heard a shot, but it was warm. I am on 100 acres of pine plantation with a big creek and hard wood bottom surrounded by hunting clubs. There has been 3 does and 6 bucks killed in 10 years. 3 decent 8 points and 3 with pedicel damage. Two of us hunting on plots with a feeder and counting deer, we figure we have about 14 does and fawns using our property. I don' ever remember hunting this property a whole day and not seeing a deer until this year. I have been hunting this county since 1988 and today Jan.17th. I have seen more chasing and killed more bucks on this date than any other day of the season. I would love to be sitting in my ground blind on the creek today, but life gets in the way. Y'all go shoot a biggun...