2013 Harvest Comparison

catman529 said:
Weren't they saying in the other thread that a very low percentage of hunters kill more than 2 birds? I don't see the point in lowering the limit in the spring unless we got an explosion of out of state hunters or something...I still say units would work best, why wouldn't they?
Click to expand...

How many turkeys did you take this spring?

Why?

Exactly my point....


And not every hunter has the birds future numbers in mind... you or I may lay off the trigger... but that doesn't mean the next guy(s) will.... many will kill 4 because they can and I am sure there are some that kill more because they are greedy and because the new checkin system makes it easier to get away with.

A lock only keeps an honest man honest.
 
So then why would lowering the bag limit work if it only works on the honest people, a low percentage of which kill more than 2 birds a year?
 
Not that many years ago Tennessee had an 11-buck annual limit on deer. Many deer hunters were wanting to reduce this to two. Many others argued, "What difference does it make!" pointing out that relatively few hunters killed more than 2 bucks anyway.

Some who were not hunting back in the 90's and prior may never appreciate "what difference it made". Some of us have seen a very positive difference made in lowering buck limits, even when most hunters don't "get the limit" whether it be 2 or 20.

Harvest limits may not matter as much as the collective other factors effecting either deer or turkey populations. It's just that seasons and harvest limits are things we can control, and these are things that will effect the ongoing population either positively or negatively.

catman529 said:
So then why would lowering the bag limit work if it only works on the honest people . . . . .
Click to expand...
MOST people are inherently honest.

Among the dishonest, sometimes it's partially an oppositional type thing where they seem "satisfied" just to "break" the limit. Some of these might kill only 3 if we had a 2-bird limit, rather than 5 with a 4-bird limit.

Also, with lower limits, those breaking the limit are more likely to stand out, and be caught.

But I think the biggest impact comes from many accomplished hunters who purposely do NOT want to limit out so long as there are still hunting days ahead. Many will "pace" their harvests, ending up with one less than the limit when the season closes. With a 4-bird limit, this is often 3; with a 3-bird limit, many among this same group would close the season with 2.

Along these same lines, the issue of shooting or not shooting jakes is effected by limits. Make the limits higher, and more jakes will be harvested, adversely impacting how many longbeards are living next year. With a relatively low limit, many hunters feel taking a jake might knock them out of an opportunity to take a longbeard before a current season ends.

This issue is somewhat akin to the difference in mindset of the average accomplished KY deer hunter vs. the average accomplished TN deer hunter. With a 1-buck limit in KY, more young bucks get passed by the experienced hunters. Whereas in TN, there is less incentive for an experienced hunter to pass a young buck, since he can kill it, plus two more. Hunter mindset is effected by limits, whether we're talking deer or turkey.

Lastly, speaking of those hunter mindsets, with higher limits comes the increased hearing of this toxic thinking: "If I don't shoot him, someone else will". Perhaps more than any other "change", when TN went from an 11-buck limit to a 2-buck limit back in 1998, for the first time, many "honest" hunters felt that a buck they passed might not be shot by another hunter.
 
I cannot quote all of you, but until you hunters experience what some of the southern TN hunters have experienced, you will not understand. Every hunter that I know in these places has experienced this decline.

Where I live and hunt some, there are few turkeys and lots of hunters. If one hunter passes him up, another hunter will kill it. Thankfully I have other places to go with good turkey hunting. If TWRA changed to units and southern Giles county was a unit, I would say no open season because it is that bad. You look at harvest report of giles and it is way more than most counties, but that is probably 90% north of Highway 64.

I am optimistic though that Southern Giles, Lawrence, and Wayne County will return to greatness. Too much good habitat for turkeys. And I think that we have just been struck with bad luck and many factors. We cannot control most factors, but we can control altering harvest limits, fall and spring, and if we own any hunting land create more suitable habitat for nesting and poult survival.

I would believe that the entire mid-state has the pretty much the same varmints and predators, and that most farming practices are somewhat similar in the use of techniques and pesticides, and that the terrian and habitat is not much different.

I know that wild turkeys typically move around alot, and maybe we are experiencing a "weird" shift and all the turkeys are in Maury county. Sounds strange, but it isn't too far from my spot and it makes sense that could be a factor.
 
CAMARO12 said:
And with hunters no longer being required to tag their turkey after harvest or take it to a checking station, I believe it's a given that even more turkeys will be killed and not reported. This will severely skew the reported harvest numbers and further contribute to the decline in the turkey population statewide.
Click to expand...

I agree CAMARO12. Doesn't make sense to me why they did this. I grew up hunting AL, and there is and was no tagging system even though they have limits. They are all just guesses. I used to look up to the TN tagging system because it would be so much harder for some hunters to get away with breaking the limits. Now, it is about like AL. Shoot the animal, throw it in your truck, drive home. Get checked by Game Warden, tell him you check it in your computer at home. If you don't get checked, which is most of the time, you could be home free.
 
Ky has a 2 bird limit and a 21 day season. This year it started on April 13th and ended on May 5th. You had 4 weekends to hunt. Kentucky's kill was close to Tenn. harvest numbers.
 
Lowering limit would be fine with me and perhaps several people. BUt I hope they do not shorten the season. It sure would hurt the people that only get to go on weekends or afternoons after work. I cherish the 7 saturday mornings I get to go and hunt all day with no restrictions but myself. Cut me down to 4, I don't think I could handle it.
 
And shortening the season really wouldn't do much if there were only a two bird limit. It wouldn't matter if the season was from Jan. 1st-Dec. 31st or March30-31st, if you killed two turkeys, you killed two turkeys.
 
Are anyone of KY regions/counties better than the others or is spread pretty evenly?
 
I have never turkey hunted in KY, but the harvest report shows this for the regional breakup of harvest data for KY.

Bluegrass Region: 6,396
Green River Region: 10,534
Northeast region: 4,060
Purchase Region: 3,757
Southeast Region: 7,749

One thing I did notice was that each region is not made of the same number of counties, however, the overall footprint in acres/square miles may be comparable between the five, or not.
 
Andy S. said:
I have never turkey hunted in KY, but the harvest report shows this for the regional breakup of harvest data for KY.

Bluegrass Region: 6,396
Green River Region: 10,534
Northeast region: 4,060
Purchase Region: 3,757
Southeast Region: 7,749

One thing I did notice was that each region is not made of the same number of counties, however, the overall footprint in acres/square miles may be comparable between the five, or not.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
I don't know how much or how little what we "think" is directly correlated as "cause & effect", but do know I consistently heard more gobbling when we had a 2-bird limit than I hear now in the same places being hunting (Stewart Co.) under a 4-bird limit.

Ironically, seems we had more turkey hunters over a broad area then (in a particular county), although the average turkey hunter was not nearly as experienced in killing a turkey as today. The average turkey hunter was also more limited in his effective shooting range with the guns, chokes, shells being used a decade or so ago. Now we have better camo, more comfortable things to sit on, better guns, chokes, shells, instructional dvds, remote-controlled decoys, etc.

This brings up another thought: Might it be that our turkey hunters today are (on average) much more experienced and accomplished, and this coupled with much higher limits may be altering the dynamics more than thought?
 
I said this on here years ago when this topic was being discussed but there werent so many people behind it then, and those of us crying foul were seen as not knowing what we were talking about..... anyway you go one county north of my county into KY and the habitat is much the same but the turkey population is far ahead of ours. Their harvest is at least 2.5 times what ours is generally if that tells you anything, with a shorter season and lower limit! I just dont fight it much anymore because I turned my own lands into great turkey places and can sustainably harvest more there than really should be taken in the county per hunter, but it wouldnt hurt me if the state limited me to 2. I would take the hit for the greater good of the whole area. I even killed a hen this Spring, but did so with careful thought, I had watched her for 3 years and she had never had poults when others in her flock had many. She could have had a dozen this year, I dont know but I took her based on those observations instead of filling that tag with a gobbler. But I dont expect to see much action from the wildlife agency, I hope Im wrong, but I doubt it.
 
Wes Parrish said:
Might it be that our turkey hunters today are (on average) much more experienced and accomplished, and this coupled with much higher limits may be altering the dynamics more than thought?
Click to expand...
I've thought of this as well, Mr. Parrish. As I understand, limits for certain species (like turkeys) are set at least in part to allow hunting opportunities based upon the annual surplus. In other words, the number of birds that can be harvested and replenished each year helps drive limts and season length. This is quite different from deer for example, where the goal may be to actually reduce the population annually in some areas.

What if we've gotten to a point where the number of hunters and our effectiveness in hammering through that "surplus" is much faster than it used to be? But, since the season is still open and we haven't reached our limit yet, we keep right on bangin'away...well beyond the surplus. We're cutting into our "seed stock" year after year and although it's only a little at a time, 5-10 years later there's an obvious reduction in available stock to reproduce the next surplus.
 
smstone22 said:
I said this on here years ago when this topic was being discussed but there werent so many people behind it then, and those of us crying foul were seen as not knowing what we were talking about..... anyway you go one county north of my county into KY and the habitat is much the same but the turkey population is far ahead of ours. Their harvest is at least 2.5 times what ours is generally if that tells you anything, with a shorter season and lower limit! I just dont fight it much anymore because I turned my own lands into great turkey places and can sustainably harvest more there than really should be taken in the county per hunter, but it wouldnt hurt me if the state limited me to 2. I would take the hit for the greater good of the whole area. I even killed a hen this Spring, but did so with careful thought, I had watched her for 3 years and she had never had poults when others in her flock had many. She could have had a dozen this year, I dont know but I took her based on those observations instead of filling that tag with a gobbler. But I dont expect to see much action from the wildlife agency, I hope Im wrong, but I doubt it.
Click to expand...

This has been going on for a number of years. I hope they take action before it becomes a major problem and before it becomes a problem in the killing counties
 

Latest posts

Back
Top