MORE DEER COVERAGE • 2004 Deer Outlook, Part 1 • 2004 Rut Report in North American Whitetail Forums

By Anthony Campbell

Killing a high-quality buck in Alabama nowadays is a matter of design rather than accident, according to Bill Gray, one of the state's two deer studies leaders.

What he means is that hunters are willing to work harder at deer management now than at any time before in the state's history. They're planting food plots, planning timber harvests, mowing, burning and shooting does, all with the betterment of their deer herd in mind.

The result is that trophy bucks are coming out of parts of the state now that were never noted for them before. Saul Campbell of Alabama Whitetail Records agrees with the assessment that deer management is at an all-time high level in the state.

"There's some real heavy-duty game management going on around the state," he said. "The bottom line is that quality deer hunting is picking up all over the state. Big deer continue to be killed in Alabama. I see them every day."

Recently, for example, he's seen a lot of large deer coming from Cullman and Walker counties, places that haven't produced huge deer in the past.

"The southernmost counties were hard-core dog-hunting counties," he also noted.

But Campbell thinks the decline of dog-hunting in that southern tier is probably helping the trophy hunting potential in that region too.

"I know," he continued. "That's how I got my start deer hunting. I was a dog-hunter. But studies have shown that it puts a lot of pressure on the deer. A lot of people have looked at it and changed the way they hunt."

Study leader Gray said high-quality deer can be grown just about everywhere in the state.

"Some of the extreme southern counties have real sandy, poor soil and lots and lots of deer," he explained. "They're at a bit of disadvantage compared to the rest of the state, but even there quality bucks are being grown. It takes more habitat work and might take an extra year or two to get the buck where you want him to be, but people are doing it. Quality bucks are a function of design. They are not an accident."

Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Chris Cook, the state's other deer biologist, said the benefits of intense management can be seen on a tract as small as 100 acres, but management programs really shine when practiced on tracts ranging in size from 3,000 to 5,000 acres.

"When three or four or even 10 landowners get together and agree to cooperate and all practice good management, they have an opportunity to produce some good quality deer, regardless of where they are located," Cook argued. "You can grow nice deer anywhere in the state."

Gray added that the Black Belt - the band of counties across the central part of the state with highly fertile soil - continues to "get a lot of ink" in regard to high-quality deer hunting.

"Rightfully so," he said. "They've got the most fertile soil in the whole state."

A lot of the record-class bucks that came from those counties were killed 20 years ago, when soybean production was at a peak in the area.

"It was before the soybeans went away and deer numbers went through the roof," Gray said. "The Black Belt doesn't produce as many quality bucks as it used to, but properties in this area still have a lot of potential if they are managed properly. A buck that reaches 5 or 6 years old and gets good nutrition in the Black Belt is going to be a good one. They don't have a genetics problem."

The keys to maximizing any property in Alabama, he continued, are providing good nutrition and improving the age structure so that bucks can reach their optimum years of antler production.

"If you do that, you're going to produce deer that anyone would be proud to harvest."

According to Gray, the bright spot for hunters who live in parts of the state that don't have high deer numbers is that those areas generally produce the biggest bucks.

"The areas that don't have quantity tend to have better quality," he said.

Southern Barbour County is an example.

"They don't have the deer numbers that a lot of other counties in South Alabama have. There's a lot of agriculture there. They've been taking fantastic deer there for several years."

David Hayden, the state's assistant chief of wildlife, said hunters across the state have realized the last several years that they need to shoot does. The need to thin does is going to continue.

"We seem to be seeing an improvement in our overall deer quality as hunters harvest more does," he said.

"The times when big deer are killed are almost written in stone," said Saul Campbell.

Those times are bow season, the first week of gun season and January.

"There is a December funk in most of the state," biologist Gray acknowledged. "We can speculate on why that is. I've seen it myself. In December, it can seem like the earth has opened and swallowed all the deer."

The best explanation he can come up with is that there have been two or three weeks of steady hunting pressure by that time, with a lot of people in the woods, and it sends the deer into remote, heavy-cover areas.

"On top of all the human scent, sign and activity in the woods, it's often still pretty warm at that time of the year and the deer just aren't moving much," he added.

In most parts of the state, the rut starts in January, which Gray noted, tilts the odds in your favor. Studies of deer fetuses are ongoing to determine exact breeding dates in the state and thus the rut. The average conception date appears to be Jan. 20.

"That's the actual date that the doe is bred," Gray said. "So you would expect to see an increase in chasing, scraping and bucks just out on the hoof looking for does a week to 10 days before that."

While mid-January is the average rutting date for most of the state, it varies somewhat in a few locations.

The rut tends to occur in December in the Pickens County area of west central Alabama, Gray observed.

The deer along the Chattahoochee River in the southeastern part of the state tend to breed in November, as do some deer in the Bankhead National Forest in the northwest.

"The different rut dates are apparently indicative of different genetic populations of deer," Gray said. "But we can't say that with 100 percent certainty. Many areas in our state were stocked with native Alabama deer, and those deer have a January rut date. But we also have some areas that were stocked with deer from Michigan and North Carolina that rut earlier."

That said, let's take a look at what the different areas of the state have to offer the trophy deer hunter this year.

In the northwest corner, composed of Lauderdale, Limestone, Madison, Colbert, Franklin, Lawrence, Morgan, Cullman, Winston, Marion, Lamar, Fayette and Walker counties, the Bankhead National Forest and its Black Warrior Wildlife Management Area are considered a top trophy area. Numerous Alabama record book qualifiers have come from this region.

"The Bankhead Forest has about 180,000 acres and is the largest public land holding in the state," biologist Ron Eakes said. "It's a rugged area, but it's not as steep as Skyline or Choccolocco. Some of the biggest bucks in Alabama are being taken here."

The northeastern corner of the state, made up of Jackson, Marshall, DeKalb, Cherokee, Etowah, Blount, St. Clair, Calhoun, Cleburne, Randolph, Clay and Talladega counties, can boast that it has more entries in the Alabama Whitetail Record Book than any other region.

Jackson County leads in the number of entries, with 64, followed by Madison, with 50.

Biologist Keith McCutcheon picks Jackson and DeKalb counties as the top places for looking for a trophy buck this fall.

"The bucks seem to be a little bigger in those counties," he said.

Each of these two counties has a public hunting area: Skyline WMA in Jackson and Little River WMA in DeKalb.

"It's steep, rugged country that's hard for people to get into," McCutcheon said. "That allows a deer to get old and gray in these areas."

The central-western portion of the state is composed of Pickens, Sumter, Greene, Marengo, Tuscaloosa, Hale, Jefferson, Bibb, Perry, Shelby, Dallas and Chilton counties.

"It's hard to narrow down just which counties are the best," biologist Chris Cook said. "It varies a lot from property to property. People who have enough land and are willing to manage it intensively can produce as good a quality deer as can be found anywhere in the state."

He said Pickens, Sumter and Marengo counties are all pretty even when it comes to potential for producing top bucks.

For public hunting land in the area, he likes Cahaba River WMA, in Bibb and Shelby counties.

East-central Alabama is another region that boasts outstanding hunting for quality bucks. The counties in this region are Coosa, Tallapoosa, Chambers, Autauga, Elmore, Macon, Lee, Russell, Bullock, Montgomery and Lowndes.

Biologist Rick Claybrook likes Bullock, Macon and Lowndes as counties that have both abundant deer and good quality bucks.

"South Montgomery County is another area with high-quality soils and high-quality bucks," he added.

He picks Lowndes WMA as a top public property with trophy potential. This WMA began quality deer management last year, meaning a buck has to have 3 points on one side to be legal for harvest.

"It's still too early to tell just what we're going to be able to produce there," Claybrook said.

If you want to hunt private land in this area, you need to be a member of a hunting club or able to lease some acreage. Practically all the huntable ground in this region of the state is tied up in leases, biologist Chuck Sharp said.

He was hesitant to pick out a top county for quality bucks, but Clarke and Wilcox have historically produced more top-end bucks than some of the other counties in the region. They are in the northern part of the region, where the soils are better for growing big animals.

Sharp likes the Upper Delta WMA as a top public hunting ground for trophy bucks. It's swampy and inaccessible and hunters have to work to get into it. That gives some bucks the chance to reach bragging size.

The biologist also noted that some nice bucks have come out of Escambia Creek WMA the last few years.

The concept of quality deer management is also increasingly catching on in the southeastern corner of Alabama, according to biologist Kenneth Johnson. This region is made up of the counties of Butler, Covington, Crenshaw, Pike, Coffee, Geneva, Barbour, Dale, Henry and Houston.

More big bucks seem to be coming from Barbour, Pike, Crenshaw and Butler counties than from any other area in this part of the state.

Johnson said it's a tossup between Covington and Barbour for the WMA producing the best bucks. Both areas enforce quality deer regulations. To be legal, a buck must have at least 3 points on one side.

"We've still got work we need to do throughout this corner of the state in regard to thinning the does," Johnson said.

Reducing the numbers, he added, is a key to producing even more good bucks.

No matter which part of the state you hunt in this fall, you can rest assured that there's trophy potential. Continued attention to protecting young bucks, shooting does and growing nutritious deer food on the land are the keys making the odds even better that you can catch up with that buck of your dreams.