I have always heard that Alabama has a very late deer season so I was looking around a little today. Many areas are open into early February which is pretty awesome but I have a few questions for those with experience there.

First I see there are many WMAs. Are these areas one must draw to hunt? If so, are non-residents able to participate in those lotteries?

Is there quite a lot of public hunting aside from those WMAs? Is it heavily hunted? Anybody here hunt the month of January or February at all on public land?

I hunt public land and don't care about inches just the chance at a good representative buck in beautiful surroundings. Deinately not looking for anyone's spot just an overview.

I'd love the idea of a LATE deer hunt but want to make sure it isn't too good to be true.

Thanks a lot for any insights,

Efw

There is no lottery draw process in Alabama. Buy a license and hunt. Public land is limited and over hunted. Almost 100% of Alabama land is under lease. Not great news. I hunt on a plantation south of Selma. There are many hunt clubs and hunting lodges in the black belt, also hunts where funds collected are given to schools, etc.

Alabama has lot and lots of deer. Small body but some bucks can go 200#,
Limits are three bucks per season and a doe a day for most areas.

Damn. That's even more of a generous limit than in GA.

I hunt Union Grove, Northern Alabama in January. Usually around the 15th or so on. That seems to be pretty active chasing/rut period.

We do not hunt public land. Fortunate enough to have a good friend with a 500 acre horse/farm.

Have seen and shot some very nice deer in Alabama.

I grew up hunting WMA's and nothing else. They can be great places to hunt if you're willing to work. No draw on the WMA's they are open to anyone with an AL hunting license (res or non-res) and an AL WMA license (~$16 unless they went up). They are "generally" open all season for bow hunting but only set dates for gun hunts. The dates vary for each one and can be found online.

There is not a lot of public ground outside of WMA's. The WMA's get a fair amount of pressure but it's been a couple of years since I've hunted them. It can be a bit of a race to get to where you're going at the start of the day.... Lots of people are lease members which reduces the number who hunt WMA's nowadays. Folks who are willing to put in some footwork and get away from other hunters generally have a better chance on the WMA's.

Most of AL has a January rut. Some areas like Choccolocco WMA have a much earlier late Oct/early Nov rut. This is due to where the deer stocked there came from originally. Check the hunt dates for the WMA you're considering as well as the dates for the rut in that area if you want to be there at "prime time"...which is also often the heaviest hunted times.

I have often thought of a late season deer hunt in Alabama with some small mouth fishing for the hogs stacked up behind the dams thrown in would be good trip.
As noted above, land to hunt can be costly or hard to come by in my research.
Tim

260#

I would suggest that a beginning place would be to contact the Game wardens and the county conservation agents for the areas you would like to hunt. They will generally know of the best areas to hunt in their counties. many land owners are under QDM and are unable to harvest all their quota of animals. I found such a place in Jackson county and for several years i shot up to 20 does per year. all the meat was donated.

YOu might want to look at an Academy hunt. There are lots of those in the black belt.

I hunt a pretty good sized chunk of land and have hunted early december, late December/January and the first 5 days of February and hunting has been fabulous. Well this year it sucked it rained so hard not even ducks were seen.

what is an academy hunt?

Google it . In a nutshell there are a lot of private schools scattered throughout alabama that off private hunts for fund raising purposes. They are usually 1/2 the price of a lodge hunt.

. Try calling Chamber of commerce in Selma. They have a two day hunt in the vicinity of$700 for two days. Fully guided and Two or three meals provided.

I'd heard of the Academy Hunts before but never really researched them. I like the idea behind it...hunting to support a school. Kinda like the fund raisers some of the ball teams have locally, buying chances on Glocks and/or AR's. You can hunt the rut from November to February if you're willing to travel around, hunts support schools, and guns raise money for sports.....gotta love Alabama!

Florida is another option for late season hunting.

I was not aware of the "academy" hunts. After a little research most appear to be in prime hunting areas and during the rut. By all appearances the landowners are striving to put you on a buck, versus where I would stick you if you hunted my place LOL. Looks like a darn good deal.

Wow gentlemen a lot of great information here thanks so much keep it coming!

Thanks as well for info on WMAs and their lack of lottery but to clarify… Do WMAs have quotas? Are there daily Hunter number quotas, or annual harvest quotas? If they don't have quotas, in what ways are they "managed" as in their title?

I ask because up here we have a couple WMAs and they're tightly managed with lotteries to get tags.

I've talked to a couple hunting partners about this and am thinking an exploratory trip is in order by January of 2019 at the latest. I am going to actively lobby my wife and a couple of them to make it a long weekend in Jan '18!

If you are looking for a good chance at a decent buck, find a guide, lodge, or fundraiser in the Blackbelt for the last couple weeks of Jan. (book early).

If you're looking for a DIY hunt and a unique experience, check out the delta. It is a large tract of Forever Wild (WMA) and a lot of it is very remote.

Steelhead's suggestion of Florida is excellent as well. The don't have near the pressure, since most of 'em come up here to hunt. They think the grass is greener on the other side. North Fl. surprises a bunch of folks, especially the ones that pass it by.

Lots of state/national forest land to hunt in Florida.

Lot of land to hunt in NOrth Florida

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Steelhead ,

Morning , where did you get that buck in Florida -the one you posted a picture of ?

Ernie ,

My advice on florida would be to get inland -away from the coastal brush/jungle . You will find it very hard to hunt -tangled vines with devils walking canes everywhere -meaning vines with stickers on them like bobcat claws -laf . Very swirly winds that blow 360* and nocturnal deer herd -the rut can start from Christmas and go to turkey season in the spring . Some of the best deer killed are in the late muzzleloader season --last week of season on public land.
Getting back away from the coast you will find far more hardwood tree areas -but with easier access you will also get more hunting pressure of coarse .
I'm in a lease north of panama city beach -off of Hwy. 79 the lease presidents grandson got a doe this year and a pig .
Nobody else has reported getting any deer -not saying they didn't but nothing has been posted on our private facebook page .
I saw my first buck on game cam last fall -and have only saw one Doe there in 5 years -it was at night . I have two cameras running all the time and have only had pictures of a couple of Does . Slim pickens around here for deer - some hogs but they are very smart and hard to kill .
I have went hunting w/a friend near Evergreen ,AL. -very nice lease with plots -herds of deer -brought two Does home each time I went and saw lots of bucks when dog hunting -they're slippery buggers and can get past you real quick like .

The Academy hunts sound good -never heard of them .

Quota hunts around here are first come first served basis -often times quotas aren't even filled - but that's because of the terrain available for hunting -i.e. thick jungle tangled mess with very little deer success . I hear and see of deer killed on WMA's -usually it's by people who live right by the WMA -word is A LOT of baiting goes on in their secret baiting spot -which doesn't bother me -they're just doing what it takes to put a deer in the freezer .

We have a huge predator problem here [protected 500+lb. black bears wild dogs coyotes bobcats panthers] and with only snaring and box traps being legal it will remain the same . Plenty of coons/possums/skunks/fox/hawks/owls/eagles that keep turkey numbers very low also. And the number of trappers in Florida is EXTREMELY LOW almost non existent .

Check out the Delta in south alabama on youtube --very remote places in there .
You better be well equipped with direction -GPS reliable boat/motor etc. and be ready to spend the night . Get lost in there you might not come out .
Seems like every year there are people who die there -lost -flipped boat wet and froze -drown etc. -two young lads died a couple of years ago trying to cross a big body of water in a canoe . It looks like it did 300 years ago .
If you decide to do something like a delta hunt -let me know I've been wanting to go back in there myself . It's not a walk in place for the most part from what I understand .

Good luck to you ..
Mike

Jackson county.

Guessing your lease is up around Ebro?

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Ok

Yes just south of Ebro nw corner of steelfield and 79 -2000 acres .

There was a freakish big buck killed up Hwy.79 in Vernon ,tried to find a picture online but couldn't -hit by a car .
It let me know that there are some huge deer down here .

edit - looked at Jackson Cty. on google earth could place it in my mind - I know a guy from Mariana -lots of agriculture up there and very different from coastal florida .
I've been meaning to take a sunday drive up through that neck of the woods and hit sw Ga. & se AL. while I'm at it . Soonish .

I was near the Bama border and the Chattahoochee river

I've lived outside Marianna. Peanut fields, cotton and some corn.

Killed a bunch of turkey there too.

Couple more from there. They were chasing hard right around the New Year.

Very nice deer !

Hey! That's pretty cool. It looked like the cost varied between the different academy's but it was reasonable for a guide and 3 hots.

We get some good ones closer to the coast than most think. This one was killed less than 5 mi. from the Gulf.

Yeah, I always get a chuckle out of those 'German shepherds are bigger than Florida deer' comments from people.

I know many have seen this one before, 225 pounds of Florida whitetail.

In honor of St Patrick's day, be careful in south Alabama.

Undocumented immigrant...

How much for the flute?

Darn nice bucks Scott you shoot those on public?

Thanks again all!!

Well, not exactly, though it was Federal property. It was the CG station I was at. We had about 300 acres and a mile long, wooded fence line on the north that ran east/west. They ran the sheit out of that fence line.

Luckily it was only a 4 man station at the time and I was the only guy that hunted.

Cool bucks Scott.

tag. These Academy hunts sound interesting

Found out about them by accident. I hunted almost 1k acres outside Selma, happened to go in one day at Noon and saw it advertised on a private school driveway.

The differences between the regions and deer in Alabama are often unknown, outside of those that have hunted many of them. Some areas of AL are like hunting FL, some like MS, some like GA, some like TN, and some areas are even like NC. Most places are some combination of all that, and so are the deer.

Fun place to hunt and the folks are very nice. We hunted early December and the deer movement was pretty limited. It was the kind of country where you expected a deer to step out at any time, but the action was very slow at that point in the season. It is my understanding that things really heat up around New Years Day.

Depends on what specific area, often down to the county. The rut and movement based on it can be up to nearly 3-months different, from one county to the next. Then you have the weather that can run from 80s to single digits, any day of the season to the next. LOL.

^^^^^^ this

have seen very little difference between Early December and late January. MOst noticeable difference was early February.

I hunted academy hunts for 3 yrs. , lot's of fun, great folks, and good food.Shot deer 2 out of 3 yrs. Crenshaw Academy in Luverne ,AL.

There is a lot of varied terrain in Alabama. LA (Lower Alabama) looks like north Florida ie pine plantations, swamps, wiregrass etc. North central and North east Alabama is the foothills of the Appalachians with deep canyons and steep hills, lot of hardwood forest. There are a couple of decent sized National Forests with WMAs, Bankhead and Talladega. Bankhead especially has some really nice bucks, but you have to do your homework and be willing to walk a long ways away from the roads.

Nothing but tiny deer down here in SE AL...

NICE!

I hunt Mississippi but it's a lot like Alabama in most ways, the hunting and laws are similar.

I personally wouldn't bother hunting public land in Mississippi or Alabama. I've done it before and killed a couple of deer that way, but the reward for the effort didn't stack up. It's overhunted and mostly poorly managed for deer. Private land is definitely the way to go down here. I'm sure there are some exceptions and someone will pipe in with a great buck killed on public land in AL or MS, but for the most part they're few and far between.

I hadn't heard of the academy hunts but those sound like a great option. There are a lot of lodges in the black belt region that offer good hunting with good accommodations for reasonable prices and those would probably be my first choice if I didn't already know someone with access to good hunting property. Don't let anyone tell you that MS & AL don't have good deer, every year my taxidermist will take in deer that make the Boone & Crockett book.

Good buck, Chris! Looks like he's been into y'all's peanut crops for awhile.

War Eagle!

Keep in mind that the rut in MS, TN, GA, LA, FL, or just about ANY other state, are at much earlier times (in general), and much more predictable and unmixed than 90% of Alabama. That factor alone makes hunting deer in Alabama different than hunting deer most anyplace else...Regardless of terrain/reg similarities. I have grown up with deer rutting at 2-3 totally different times, just within one county....Often with little predictability. It really is crazy to figure sometimes.

I hunt in NE Mississippi, and used to hunt in NW Alabama. Our rut is almost always full swing in January, but I have seen Bucks chasing does during early march turkey season. I wish Season in MS would open up a little later and go about two weeks into February.