Alabama leading the way

TheLBLman said:

IMO, that will do more to help than anything regarding the decoys.
Sure wish TN would push our statewide season back a week!

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I'm just not a fan of pushing the season back, I've heard all my life that most hens are bred before the season opens. If true there's no biological reason for pushing it back. Now outlawing male turkey decoys and tents, there's a step in the right direction. There would be alot more gobblers left alive at the end of the season.

timberjack86 said:

I'm just not a fan of pushing the season back, I've heard all my life that most hens are bred before the season opens. If true there's no biological reason for pushing it back. Now outlawing male turkey decoys and tents, there's a step in the right direction. There would be alot more gobblers left alive at the end of the season.

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I think with the onslaught of decoys, tents, etc turkey hunters are killing more birds and more birds early which defeats the original premise of hens being bred early.

Great news for the minimally renewable resource (eastern wild turkey). Maybe we can invite their Conservation Advisory Board and Agency Head to testify at one of our TFWC Meetings. Pushing season back a week, no decoys for 10 days, and reducing the limit should make a difference OVER TIME. Not overnight like so many will jump to point out. Give the turkeys time to respond and react. Thanks for sharing Setterman.

timberjack86 said:

I'm just not a fan of pushing the season back, I've heard all my life that most hens are bred before the season opens. If true there's no biological reason for pushing it back.

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Michael Chamberlain is a huge advocate of later opening dates to allow hens more time to be bred. He believes mid-April would be ideal.

timberjack86 said:

I'm just not a fan of pushing the season back, I've heard all my life that most hens are bred before the season opens. If true there's no biological reason for pushing it back. Now outlawing male turkey decoys and tents, there's a step in the right direction. There would be alot more gobblers left alive at the end of the season.

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I'm not really sure where or who started this misconception. Biologically, season is SUPPOSED to start after hens have been bred to minimize impact on reproduction. TN was flying by the seat of their pants when they set season dates back in the 80s.

Remember, 2/3 of the entire seasons kill occurs in the first 10 days (and this was true even before fanning and reaping became so popular) When season opens has the greatest impact on population dynamics and availability (or lack of availability) for males to service the hens.

I can tell you for CERTAIN, based on 1000s of hours observing turkeys on my farms, finding nests, performing necropses on broken eggs to determine the embryological age of the undeveloped poilt within, and observing timing of poults that the vast majority of breeding starts April 7th through 14th, peaking around April 20th. Initiation of nests beginning April 14th, and peaking around April 28th. Sure, there are outliers... a tiny percentage of hens will mate in March and start nests end of March, many more however will mate and initiate nests in mid May.

BUT. I concede this is for a very specific localized area of southern middle TN approx 20 miles. Perhaps all the hens have been bred in other parts of the state by the end of March.... but I suspect not.

Before turkey hunting became popular, coincidentally, the very best hunting was mid April. By mid April, the subflocks had completely broken up and those satellite toms were desperate to find a hen. The very best hunting for long spurred birds was the end of April mid day... when their hens had left them and broken off to lay.

I MUCH prefer to hunt mid April, but with so many males being killed first 10 days of season, it became much harder to just find a gobbler to hunt. I've had to shift my trips up to opening week, because I would rather see, work, and hear birds gobble than kill one.

This is TWRA's data.

I've been hunting the turkey since the first season opened in my area back in the early 90's. I am 50 years old and neither a poor hunter nor lazy. I personally have no problem with any decoy, period. Someone mentioned they were ok with hens but not male decoys. I don't understand because isn't the goal of both to lure a gobbler into range? In my many years of experience I've had more set ups ruined by decoys than I have had success with them, hence I rarely, rarely use a decoy of any kind. Also it sounds that some are wanting decoys outlawed as to allow more gobblers to survive the season, if that is the case the easiest route would be to reduce the limit. Doesn't make any sense to me to outlaw decoys to reduce the number of birds harvested. Just a few thoughts, don't mean much to anyone but me probably

Spurhunter said:

Michael Chamberlain is a huge advocate of later opening dates to allow hens more time to be bred. He believes mid-April would be ideal.

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Wouldn't it be nice for him to share his thoughts at all the meetings twra and the commission have? I was hoping it would have happened long before now.

^^ A lot of hunters want full strut decoys banned, especially the first half of season, because that is the ONLY way most hunters (all of us included too), can routinely kill a dominant turkey (1.25"+ spurs) early season that is strutting with a harem of hens. We want the dominant turkey left alone to breed as many hens as possible. The absolute easiest way to kill him early season before leaf out when visibility is the greatest, with zero skill set, is place a strutting decoy in his immediate area where he can see it, and wait for him to charge it to whoop it's tail and run it off. Voila, the dominant bird has been pulled off his harem to protect his turf and hens, and the shooter kills him at 15 yards without ever making a move, making a call, nothing, other than staking a decoy, and shooting straight.

TheLBLman said:

IMO, that will do more to help than anything regarding the decoys.
Sure wish TN would push our statewide season back a week!

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Or if was always the 2nd Saturday in April, no matter what.

I am not sure I see the issue with using decoys. We(hunters) use decoys for deer, duck, dove...about anything else that is hunted. Why not turkeys too? Have there been studies that show using decoys is a significant issue with turkey populations? There may be, I don't know. I tried to use a fan(from a taken bird) to approach a group in a field last year. Didn't get anywhere close to them. I almost never use decoys because I have never had success when using one. But I am not following the logic of banning them just because it makes it easier to harvest a bird. The harvest limits of each state should take care of protecting the populations. If they are not then the harvest limit should be addressed. That is something to take up with your state's wildlife organization(TWRA here in TN).

I have hunted both with decoys and without. I haven't noticed any big advantage to decoys, especially in woods. Similar to deer hunting, the only time I have seen decoys work well is in a large field with decoys placed such that they can be seen at long distances. I have never used a strutter or a fan though, usually a lone hen or maybe a hen plus a jake.

I can't help but wonder if people opposed to decoys are making assumptions about their effectiveness that aren't quite true.

Without decoy use I would suggest that at a minimum 50% more gobblers would live through the first two weeks of the season. I know that harvest totals aren't showing it, but there are a LOT less turkeys in Tennessee than there were 6-7 years ago. What's happening is that even though we are basically killing the same number of birds we are killing a greater percentage of the that are birds available to kill. The left overs are diminishing each year and all the sudden you have something drastic happen like disease or bad hatch and you now have next to nothing to hunt for a few years. Next thing you know you are in bobwhite quail territory.

Andy said it well earlier about decoys.

Dennis said:

I have hunted both with decoys and without. I haven't noticed any big advantage to decoys, especially in woods. Similar to deer hunting, the only time I have seen decoys work well is in a large field with decoys placed such that they can be seen at long distances. I have never used a strutter or a fan though, usually a lone hen or maybe a hen plus a jake.

I can't help but wonder if people opposed to decoys are making assumptions about their effectiveness that aren't quite true.

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Decoys definitely provide an advantage for field birds. Would also like to see the fall seasons in the south eliminated entirely by the various states.

poorhunter said:

What's happening is that even though we are basically killing the same number of birds we are killing a greater percentage of the that are birds available to kill. The left overs are diminishing each year and all the sudden you have something drastic happen like disease or bad hatch and you now have next to nothing to hunt for a few years. Next thing you know you are in bobwhite quail territory.

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Couldn't have said it any better. This is the best explanation for what's happening, imo

poorhunter said:

Without decoy use I would suggest that at a minimum 50% more gobblers would live through the first two weeks of the season. I know that harvest totals aren't showing it, but there are a LOT less turkeys in Tennessee than there were 6-7 years ago. What's happening is that even though we are basically killing the same number of birds we are killing a greater percentage of the that are birds available to kill. The left overs are diminishing each year and all the sudden you have something drastic happen like disease or bad hatch and you now have next to nothing to hunt for a few years. Next thing you know you are in bobwhite quail territory.

Andy said it well earlier about decoys.

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I would say way more birds are taken by hunters sitting in a blind with corn out. Even though it is illegal it still happens

If you want to see how idiotproof full strut decoys are when moving combined with gobbler whines and fighting purrs, just watch the Culpepper dude on YouTube. He's a Michael Waddell protégé, and Michael thinks he's the greatest turkey hunter of all time.

His first 3 or 4 episodes this season have been in south Florida private ranches, and he has killed a pile of birds in open fields reaping them. His basic strategy is get fairly close in the dark, let them fly down, then crawl to them with a strutted decoy in his face until the tom sees him. When the tom first spots his movement, he shakes the decoy and does some fighting whines, then the tom folds up and charges right in. Sometimes they shoot them at 20y, sometimes the shoot them at 6 or 7 steps. Usually the hens and jakes are standing around spectating wondering what just happened, and don't even leave till the crew gets up cheering at their amazing skills.

Sad thing is, he's probably a decent caller and may have decent woodsmanship skills, but he never uses them because the hunt is over as soon as they find a tom. It's like watching a movie that you've already seen the ending.

Now staked decoys are a different thing. Still a huge advantage, but nothing like reaping with a strutter.

The advent of the strutter decoys, HD jakes has been the demise of thousands upon thousands of dominant gobblers early season each year that would normally survive to breed their harem. There is absolutely no way to deny this. These birds would survive for most of the season without the aid and crutch of decoys. By the time they're vulnerable most hunters have hung it up, or all the hens are bred.

I feel that the pecking order is so well established when the season opens that many hens are going unbred because the dominant bird is dead. This leaves gaps in recruitment hurting the future population

The decoy stuff allows the biggest googans out there to waddle into a pasture stake a decoy out where it's visible and wait for the dominant bird to see it. When he does boom he dies with zero effort

Anyone comparing turkeys to deer/ducks/dove whatever else species immediately loses credibility.

as far as baiting with corn, it's illegal and been illegal. No way to make it anymore illegal.

I've been beating this drum for years. Outlaw the decoys and you'll save 50% more gobblers each season. Outlaw the decoys now. Outlaw the decoys forever.

Setterman said:

The advent of the strutter decoys, HD jakes has been the demise of thousands upon thousands of dominant gobblers early season each year that would normally survive to breed their harem. There is absolutely no way to deny this. These birds would survive for most of the season without the aid and crutch of decoys. By the time they're vulnerable most hunters have hung it up, or all the hens are bred.

I feel that the pecking order is so well established when the season opens that many hens are going unbred because the dominant bird is dead. This leaves gaps in recruitment hurting the future population

The decoy stuff allows the biggest googans out there to waddle into a pasture stake a decoy out where it's visible and wait for the dominant bird to see it. When he does boom he dies with zero effort

Anyone comparing turkeys to deer/ducks/dove whatever else species immediately loses credibility.

as far as baiting with corn, it's illegal and been illegal. No way to make it anymore illegal.

I've been beating this drum for years. Outlaw the decoys and you'll save 50% more gobblers each season. Outlaw the decoys now. Outlaw the decoys forever.

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Would you be opposed to planting a food plot, setting up a tree stand and waiting on a mature buck to show?

hbg1 said:

Would you be opposed to planting a food plot, setting up a tree stand and waiting on a mature buck to show?

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See my comment above about comparing species....

you have fallen into that category

but to humor you and your question. I don't deer hunt any longer. I was blessed to kill a bunch of huge deer over the years and just got bored with it. I quit about 5 years ago. I don't miss it