Photo by Mark Werner

The times are changing for Alabama deer hunters, with more emphasis being put on quality deer management, commonly known as QDM, than ever before.

If the trend continues -- and state biologists expect it to do just that -- some outstanding buck hunting could be just around the corner for the Cotton State. The idea of managing lands to produce good quality bucks has long been popular on private lands in the state, but now it is beginning to even spill over onto public lands around Alabama.

The QDM push is so strong now that one entire county -- Barbour -- has gone to a mandated antler restriction. For a buck to be legal to harvest anywhere in Barbour County this season, it must have at least three points on one antler and those points have to be at least an inch long.

That management strategy got a 90 percent approval rating from the hunters and landowners who were surveyed in Barbour County prior to the restriction being approved by the State Conservation Advisory Board. It mimics the antler restriction that has been in effect on Barbour Wildlife Management Area for the last six seasons.

The restriction will be in place for at least five seasons, with state biologists to give reports on the county and the management strategy each season starting in the third year.

The whole state will be watching the experiment to see just what it does in terms of improving the age structure of the herd in Barbour County.

"The guy who has 4,000 or 5,000 acres and has been managing it already is probably not going to see much difference," said Bill Gray, Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries district wildlife biologist for the Barbour region. "But it should really benefit the guys who are hunting on the smaller tracts -- the 80s and 120s and 200s."

Chris Cook, the state's Deer Studies Project leader, said it is going to be interesting to see if the Barbour County experiment is a catalyst for change throughout the state.

"This is sort of how a change in management started in Georgia," he noted. "Dooly County started with an antler restriction and then other counties tried to do the same thing. Some were successful. Some weren't. Ultimately, it led Georgia to change their harvest requirements for bucks statewide."

Georgia allows deer hunters to kill two bucks per season, Cook said. The first is a "hunter's choice" buck of any size and the second has to have four points on one antler to be legal.

If the antler restriction in Barbour County works as well as it has on Barbour WMA, hunters are going to be pleased with it, Gray pointed out.

"It has helped the WMA tremendously," the biologist said. "Hunters come down and they talk about seeing more buck sign in the woods than they've ever seen before."

Along with protecting the younger bucks, the WMA hunters have been shooting more does, Gray added. That is producing a stronger, more intense rutting period on the WMA.

The Barbour County situation is perhaps just an example of how more and more hunters in Alabama want to improve their land and better manage their deer to produce nice bucks. Management continues to be the buzzword in deer hunting circles.