nodog

Money talks, stop buying more than 1 tag and wait till you fill it before deciding on another.

With all this talk, that is going on every where, I'm not going to waste the time or money going some where in hopes of it being better. I'll have to be sure it is before going.

Looks like raising hogs and cows is the way I'll fill the freezer. Let those with money in the industry do the lobbying for the hunter, don't buy anything you don't need. I got just about everything I need for years to come, do the same and they will put pressure on the right people.

Hunters do more than kill things, stop doing those things. Let the wild take over, it will speak for the hunter as well. Imagine what would happen if no one hunted for a year or 2. You'll never get a state full of hunters to go along, but it would drain the budgets and cause the critter population to explode. I could do it and I don't have as many years left as some others.

nodog

Go into town and call them yotes. When the people share in the love things will change. Let'm eat the little pets that run around. Refuse to pay for the privaledge to keep things in check and let them pay you. Few people these days needs to hunt, but the states cannot say that, they need the hunter in many ways. Start a critter control service.

I'm sure many can go down to a farmer, buy a live animal and butcher it yourself cheaper than it costs per pound to hunt. We really don't need to freeze and spend what we do to have what we get. We're the mature ones who know where our food comes from and are also mature enough to do what needs done. Let the rest of them live without the hunter. Don't be stupid and kill a cow far away from where your going to butcher it.

The only reason the hunters have taken advantage of these doe kills is they believed the dnr had their best interests in mind and there must be enough deer around. Ohio is different, we have never had enough deer so what's happened here was a no brainer and the results are happening very quickly waking up the hunters and I think limiting the amount of time it will take for a recovery. We'll see. I didn't shoot a doe here this year or last, or the year before if I remember right. Did buy the tag though which I won't do next year or any years to come till things change.

supaflav

Yeah, but Alabama has a deer population of 1.25 million and the doe to buck ratio is still around 22-1. They need to continue to urge the hunters to harvest does and raise the minimum on requirements for bucks. We are siing bigger and bigger killed every year down south. I wouldn't be opposed to an "earn-a-buck" program. You wouldn't be able to harvest a buck until you take a doe. We just aren't killling enough does. The herd is way out of balance.

Stonewall308

In Northern VA I saw this year about 1/4 the number of deer I saw last year. I was hoping it was a fluke but from this thread it looks like it is the same in many states.

When you have to drive over an hour each way to hunt, it is really very discouraging to get skunked several hunts in a row. Hopefully things will bounce back. I'm not convinced that it has to do with over hunting.

wareaglecj

Stan00 just brought up an excellent point - "How can we get youths to hunt when there is none around?". Its the future of this sport that will really suffer. I have 2 boys and luckily I had access to property that was loaded with deer. They are now hooked. But we lost that land and now our new property is suffering the same fate as the rest of the state - too few deer and too many coyotes. The only bright spot is the turkeys are still holding strong. Ofcourse we don't shoot hens; hmmm... coincidence?

Gunplummer

We heard the same crap up here in Pa. "The deer herd is out of balance ". What nonsense. The herd looks out of balance because the bucks are not as visible as a herd of does are. 25-30 years ago in Pa. if a doe had two fawns with it, chances were that one was a button buck. This showed up in the amount of button bucks that were killed in doe season. We also heard that the racks were going to get bigger. They did, but only on private property where the deer could not be over hunted. With antler restrictions I should be seeing a lot of small stuff when I am hunting and I don't. Doesn't it take young little deer to make big deer? I think down the road we are going to pay for messing around with nature and trying to engineer it. All these biologists have no idea what the impact of herd manipulation will bring in 20-30 years. I have Game Commission magazines from the 60's and when you compare them to to days magazines you can see how ignorant they have become.

L. Clement

I live in Iowa and I will agree that I also believe the population is down, and it's been going down since 2006. Back then we did have an extremely high population of deer which did cause a lot of car accidents and crop damage. As a result the Farm Bureau and insurance companies lobbied to our governor to get the deer population down and it worked. Every farmer I've talked to wants all the deer gone, they claim they lose tens of thousands of dollars each harvest. Unfortunately our state has not reduced the number of doe tags.

I hope next year Iowa reduces the amount of doe tags, and I hope hunters are more selective. Iowa also has antlerless late-seasons which means you can shoot anything without antlers, but we all know the Bucks drop their antlers that time year, so you can pretty much shoot whatever you want. Remember if you shoot one doe, that's two less deer for next season. I know most people in this form realize that.

As a bow hunter this has me concerned.

Todd1700

According to who? The state of Alabama is so broke they can't afford a pot to pee in. You really think they are funding any major studies aimed at accurately determining deer herd numbers? I've been hearing the number 1.25 or 1.5 million Alabama deer thrown around for 25 years now. And that's probably how long it's been since anyone even compiled a serious estimate. Alabama has no tag or check in system. How the hell do they even know how many deer are killed each year in Alabama? Answer, they don't. But that doesn't stop them from posting a figure every year. Watch, I can do it too. I think 300,000 deer were killed in Alabama last year. What do I based that opinion on? Why the same thing the Alabama DNR does. Absofarkinglutely nothing at all. I (like them) just yanked it right out of my @$$. Hey, this is kinda fun. And easy too. Maybe I could get a job at the Department of Natural Resources here.

25 years ago I was hearing that same 1.25 million deer number. But in the last 25 years Alabama has seen an almost total shift away from the growing of agricultural crops like corn or soy beans which deer also fed on. Now it's all about logging and planting plantations of hybrid Lob lolly pine trees which provide virtually zero sustenance for anything. For a long time in Alabama you were allowed to kill a buck and a doe per day all season long. And it's a long season starting with bow season Oct 15th, then joined by gun season around Nov 19th. Both then run concurrently until the end of January. Do the math. Two deer a day for a season that long? That's a freaking slaughter of deer. Now they have cut the buck harvest back to 3 per season, although without a tag system and Alabama's underfunded handful of game wardens it's virtually unenforceable. And you can still hammer the does daily from start to finish. People flock to places like Illinois and Iowa for the big racked bucks but they have been pouring into Alabama for the relatively cheap meat slaughter for years and years now. Then there's the coyotes. They were virtually nonexistent here 25 years ago. Now they are a widespread plague. And they are hell on newborn fawns.

Now with the changes I just laid out for you. Massive reduction in available food sources; almost unrestricted hunting for 3 and a half months a year; and the introduction of an aggressive new predator (coyotes) that are ravaging the fawn population, you (and the DNR) still want me to believe that the herd population has remained steady or increased since I first heard that 1.25 million figure 25 years ago? LOL! No one here see deer in numbers like they used to. And all just laugh when they hear these baseless numbers quoted by the Alabama DNR. As an organization they are considered pretty much a joke by the residents here and basically they just release reports and statements that reflect whatever they have been told to say.

MZS

I thought they only did this up where I live, but I guess not. Up in N.WI unlimited harvest tags at $2 each were given out the last few years. I have heard stories of some guys shooting 6 deer, and believe me, we do not have enough deer to support that kind of harvest.

To put this in perspective, I drive home on a 45 min commute past many hay fields that have been frequented by many deer. In years past, I have seen 40+ deer total in all the fields. One evening this year I counted ONE deer total in ALL the fields during the drive! I don't even worry too much about hitting deer on the road - I don't even see hardly a deer during the peak of the rut while driving! Perhaps that is what the insurance companies want - it surely raises their bottom line.

MZS

Yes, that is correct. I have a nice gun stand for my son, but the day cam showed NO deer coming in. So we did not buy a license as he did not want to sit for hours watching nothing, and I don't blame him. Next year, I will get my son out with the bow at a time when the very few deer there are will not be baited off my land by neighbors. He couldn't quite handle the bow this year.