Photo by Charles R. Brower III

If you did not see as many deer in Alabama last season as you normally do, don't fret. Just take comfort that you were not alone.

By nearly all accounts, the 2004-05 deer season was not a good one for Alabama's hunters. State biologists say the weather was to blame.

There was a bumper crop of acorns in many parts of the state. Wet weather over the summer and into the early fall produced lush vegetation such as honeysuckle, resulting in plentiful food for the deer herd.

The abundance of food combined with unseasonably warm weather for much of the hunting season meant deer simply did not have to move much, so deer sightings were down among many hunters.

"When we had cold snaps, the kill picked up," state deer studies leader Chris Cook of Demopolis said. "But then it would warm back up again and everything would slow right back down."

There was a pretty good stretch of hunting around Christmas and another the last two weeks of the season, he added. Much of the rest of the season was a bummer.

It was especially unfortunate because it was basically the second year in a row when conditions were like that. It has caused some hunters to say the state simply does not have as many deer as it used to.

The Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries wildlife biologists in charge of managing the herd from north to south disagree. The whitetails are out there, they say. It just takes some good conditions to put them on the move and, perhaps, some more creative strategies by hunters to capitalize in spite of that lack of movement.

"In years like the one we just had, hunters have to get in the woods and hunt," said Bill Gray, the southeastern Alabama biologist. "You've got to hunt where the deer are, not where you want them to be."

Overall, last year's deer harvest is believed to have been down somewhat, although final numbers from postseason hunter surveys had not come in at press time.

That could, however, translate into more whitetails carrying over to this season. Because there was plenty of food last year, those deer should be in great shape.

"The conditions were good for the deer," Cook emphasized. "It was conducive to more deer surviving and the bucks that made it through last season will just be a little bigger this year."

The reduced harvest last season should just mean there are a few more of those bigger bucks wandering around the state this season, he added.

If the right weather conditions materialize in the 2005-06 season, it sets the table for some potentially outstanding hunting in the coming months.

"When we catch a season when there's not a big acorn crop and the weather is not as warm, hunters are going to see plenty of deer," Cook said.

It is hard to be a deer hunter when the conditions are tough like they were last year, he conceded.

"No one wants to go sit on a food plot and just watch the grass grow," the biologist said.

It is tough seasons that sometimes cause Alabama hunters to press for changes, like extending the season into February.