Season Changes

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Gobble4me757

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Oh wow…actual science disproving something that's common sense: The delayed season does not help turkey populations. Something myself and many others have been saying. It goes back to improving habitat and reducing nest predation is the key to a healthy turkey population. Screw Chamberlin and TWRA.

Assessing the Effects of the Spring Hunting Season Start Date on Wild Turkey Seasonal Productivity and Hunter Behavior

Many states throughout the Southeast have documented declines in wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) harvest and estimates of recruitment in poult-per-hen ratios. Wild turkey populations are driven by seasonal productivity, so the decline in these parameters may indicate a decline in the overall...
trace.tennessee.edu trace.tennessee.edu
 
Boll Weevil said:
I'm genuinely interested to see if there will be any regs changes going forward. Seems like for every study claiming start date has no impact there's a counter-study that states otherwise.
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Guaranteed nothing changes. They don't like admitting they are wrong. I've heard of multiple studies continuing to prove that it has no impact. My bama people are pissed as well with our CAB.
 
I agree with you 100%,these idiots don't know nothing about turkeys.Turkeys are gonna breed whether we are there or not.
 
All the season delay does is make for better hunting. And I'm OK with hunting lone suicidal toms mid April in TN. Makes me feel like I actually know what I'm doing. As opposed to henned up toms late March in TN. Those henned up toms make me feel like I'm a pimple faced sophomore hitting on the hottest senior cheerleader in high school. Give you a courtesy flirt, but you have no real chance with them.

So... if the season delay doesn't hurt... YET it results in better hunting... why move it back to late March???

As I've said before... im selfish. I LOVE being able to hunt south MS Mar 15th for 30 days... then come to my home in TN Apr 15th and hunt unpressured birds... and I love being able to hunt in TN until the end of May. I no longer feel I have to head out west or up north to states I don't give a rip about to extend my season. I can hunt for 2.5 months in just 2 states.

You guys in TN ought to think about doing the same... hunt MS Mar 15 thru Apr 15, then hunt TN Apr 15 thru May 28.
 
timberjack86 said:
Twra, Legalize year round night time predator hunting! The only ones that are shooting deer at night are doing it already!
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I guess coyotes are infinitesimaly easier to call in at night vs day.... but we have had great success calling them in and killing them in daylight hours.

While adult predators and nest predators are the biggest obstacles to turkeys repopulating, the biggest human obstacle is that most turkey hunters don't do their part. They just kill their birds and hope there are more next year to kill. Take, take, take. And it's not just kill a few coyotes and coons here and there.... if you want to actually make a difference, it has to be an 'all out war' declared on coyotes and coons. When one shows up on camera, eliminate it immediately.

I guess what I'm saying is legalizing nighttime hunting of coyotes will help a tad...not because it's ineffective...but because most turkey hunters don't spend any time removing predators, so the net end result won't make a hill of beans for turkeys.

Now making everyone who wants to turkey hunt turn in 5 coyotes and 10 coons before they can get a turkey tag... holy cow, THAT would .ake a difference. (I'm not advocating that... there would be no turkey hunters that year.... BUT the turkeys would thrive!)
 
Turkeykiller54 said:
Turkeys are gonna breed whether we are there or not.
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Yep.

I mostly read all of that. Lots of repeating and lots of big statistical words. But the bottom line was easy to follow. Delaying the season opening had no impact on turkey nesting, breeding, success rate, etc...

I kept looking for the super simple summary table. There was one, but it had way too many numbers that I was supposed to understand back when I took statistics courses. :)
 
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I think most people would rather hunt the first two weeks in April than the last two weeks of May. Henned up birds are part of it and what keeps you going back time after time and also what clears out the woods by mid April . Seeing as how research has proven it doesn't help one bit to delay the season just move the season back, if nothing else move it back a week towards the old opener. Not a fan of Memorial day weekend turkey hunting. Lol
 
deerfever said:
I think most people would rather hunt the first two weeks in April than the last two weeks of May. Henned up birds are part of it and what keeps you going back time after time and also what clears out the woods by mid April . Seeing as how research has proven it doesn't help one bit to delay the season just move the season back, if nothing else move it back a week towards the old opener. Not a fan of Memorial day weekend turkey hunting. Lol
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Hunters would rather hunt the first 2 weeks than the last 2 weeks regardless of when those weeks fall. Under the old dates, hunters weren't a fan of hunting into May. Turkey harvest is front loaded horribly.

From most reports, hunter success and experience was very good last year. Could it be a case of hunters preferring an option that provided lower success and a lesser quality experience for the sake of tradition?

Personally I'd like to keep the dates until there's at least 2, preferably 3 seasons to base the decision on.
 
MickThompson said:
Hunters would rather hunt the first 2 weeks than the last 2 weeks regardless of when those weeks fall. Under the old dates, hunters weren't a fan of hunting into May. Turkey harvest is front loaded horribly.

From most reports, hunter success and experience was very good last year. Could it be a case of hunters preferring an option that provided lower success and a lesser quality experience for the sake of tradition?

Personally I'd like to keep the dates until there's at least 2, preferably 3 seasons to base the decision on.
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Again it's just a matter of preference, either way we killed 30k birds last year, same amount we harvested steady since the year 2000 most killed either 1 or two just the same as it was even when the limit was 4. Last year was the 3rd year of there being delayed season in some or all of TN. The hundreds of hens studied for 6 years in the TN study were in delayed and non delayed areas with no difference for our turkeys in nesting success whatsoever. The common theme to the great hatches of the last 3 years has been weather, same as the article about great hatches I have posted in Mississippi which opens March 15, dry weather at the right times. Weather and predators 100 percent of the time will determine the success. Also this year will be the second year of the delay for the entire state, so we are on the same page if all things are the same again this year with nesting success as in the past. We will have to wait to see what happens with the weather, let's all hope it's dry again at the right times and not wet. Remember all the success you speak of last year for hunters were birds from a non delay in TN. Again if nothing else just move it back a week, juvenile would have been March 30 this year and opener would have been April 6. I will survive either way just stating my preference, I realize opinions will vary. Hurry up April 13!!!
 
Gobble4me757 said:
Oh wow…actual science disproving something that's common sense: The delayed season does not help turkey populations. Something myself and many others have been saying. It goes back to improving habitat and reducing nest predation is the key to a healthy turkey population. Screw Chamberlin and TWRA.

Assessing the Effects of the Spring Hunting Season Start Date on Wild Turkey Seasonal Productivity and Hunter Behavior

Many states throughout the Southeast have documented declines in wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) harvest and estimates of recruitment in poult-per-hen ratios. Wild turkey populations are driven by seasonal productivity, so the decline in these parameters may indicate a decline in the overall...
trace.tennessee.edu trace.tennessee.edu
Click to expand...
How would they know after 1 year. Seems you'd need at least 3 years of data.

Personally I like the earlier opener, and no restrictions on what you can kill on public land
 
Is there a sunset clause or something similar on the later start date? Or is this just permanent until the "experts" decide to change things?

For a while I was solidly convinced that delaying the opener was a good thing but that's because I'd only seen evidence in favor of it.

The results in the above linked study certainly point to the opposite of what I was told.
 
Bone Collector said:
How would they know after 1 year. Seems you'd need at least 3 years of data.

Personally I like the earlier opener, and no restrictions on what you can kill on public land
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This is fair but studies out of the other states are showing the same thing this increasing the power of the study. It's purely common sense as well but wild we have to make studies to prove this. My problem is a state making a change based off a theory and not what the state biologists are saying. This happened in both Tennessee and Alabama. The states are too proud to change it back is why I fight this. In bama we went from March 15 to March 20 to March 25…when does it stop? In south bama it's a jungle in early to mid April so the early season is key to us.
 


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