Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting SE Alabama opportunities

Never hunted east of Idaho and know nothing about hunting opportunities in Alabama, but will be at Fort Rucker this summer for up to two years and would like to hunt, given the time and opportunity.

Anyone know of the deer hunting that way? Have looked up seasons and bag limits, certainly not the usual one per year I'm used to.

Much opportunity on public land? Any tips would be appreciated.

NWO

You are in for a shock sir.

Are you military? You said "at Fort Rucker" so I assume you are. If so, that would be a great place to hunt.

Other options are Federal or State Parks, or a hunting club/lease. Stay away from the Wildlife Management Areas (WMA's), when the sun comes up, you'll see bright orange caps about every 3rd tree in every direction.

The Federal land is huge, and not too awfully crowded.

You will find little to no luck getting a landowner to let you hunt their property. They have all learned that there is money in leasing, and do so.

Your best bet to get deer regularly, is to join a hunting club. They tend to do it right here and practice great management. They keep member numbers low in relation to the land so the deer on those parts are often decent sized and not overly pressured.

Where deer hunting is tricky to come by, you will be coming to hog heaven. You can hunt pigs year round, with no bag limit.

FWIW, there are a lot of Alabama Campfire members, and sadly, most of us got skunked on deer this year....

Think I'll probably enjoy the hog hunting more than the deer

Haven't explored opportunites on base, will start looking into that though.

Oh man, a good hog hunt is an adrenaline filled ride like no other.

This coming from a former UH-60 crew chief

Not sure which airframe I prefer, but the 60 is in the running.

I knew you'd understand

Welcome to Alabama.

I live and hunt about 15 miles from Ft Rucker. You will struggle to kill deer on base, the hogs ran them off. There is no productive public land in the area. Barbour County Wildlife Management Area isn't too far but its WAYYYYY to crowded. There are lots of deer in the area around Ft. Rucker but hunting club memberships are at a premium with very restrictive management rules taking a lot of the fun out of it. As has already been mentioned, forget about landowners giving you access. Every piece of property is already hunted, no matter how large or small, and most of them probably charge their kids to hunt. Considering that and the liberal bag limits its amazing we have the numbers that we do. I'm overrun with deer. A testimony for the cover density no doubt.

I know I'm painting a grim picture. Shoot Hondo64d a PM. He was stationed in Rucker for a while and is a big time deer hunter (and hog slayer to boot). I'm afraid he's going to make it sound worse than I did. On the bright side, shooting/hunting is how I met John (Hondo64d) and he's now a very close friend.

Get up with me and I'll do anything I can for you. And don't be to discouraged, I killed two decent deer this year at my home and saw a few more that were bigger but I couldn't get on them (one was a bruiser).

Nice bucks

Drop me a PM when you get down here and done with WOC school. I am on a lease, we can take guests. You can only shoot does/cull bucks as a guest, but at least you could kill something and put meat in the freezer.

Cool, appreciate it

If want to travel a bit I hunt the talledega national forrest around Childersburg. Would be glad to show you around and do some hunts. Welcome to 'Bama

I live 45min from Fort Rucker and have a lot of friends that actually do a lot of hunting on Fort Rucker itself for deer and hogs. It's bow mainly but there are some gun days.

PM to me and maybe we can make a hunt at my tree farm in Escambia County.

Wouldn't mind going archery for deer again if it helps out. Are most areas pretty thick, broken, open?

Most, if not all, of the areas are thick. Planted pines with controlled burns is about as open as it gets.

Nice offer right there! Love Dauphin Island area BTW.

There's a couple of good leases I know about that will be looking for members. They are up close to Hurtsboro. Probably be an hour run for you, maybe 1.5 but both have nice campgrounds.
PM if you are interested.

Hurtsboro is the finest deer hunting in the Southeast as far as I'm concerned. The deer density in that area is crazy thick and it produces quality bucks. If you're serious about hunting I'd definitely check out opportunities in this area.

Sent ya a PM jmj, thanks.