Some common sense. Awesome.
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3 bird limit???
- Thread starter Bone Collector
- Start date
Setterman
Well-Known Member
With that said leaving the season open until Memorial Day is just asinine
Soft Talker
Well-Known Member
So your wanting to model season dates and bag limits based on input from hunters like Muddyboots and Knightrider. Ones a traditional member of the "it's over their done" crowd, and the other is going to setup an ambush on your fence, 100yrds from your house and birdfeeder.
Talking with a friend, at the start , say 1988, there weren't any turkey hunters with decades of experience because there hadn't been turkeys in decades. It wasn't just a boom in hunters . We both agreed that we knew about 4 other guys that turkey hunted then and they were the same guys. The turkey boom happened before the boom of turkey hunters and that boom was made up of younger guys with a lot of "ambition" to do well, their fathers didn't have turkeys growing up but they did.
I believe the hunting pressure by turkey hunting suddenly becoming real popular, all the birds being killed during peak breeding and the disruption of breeding is the cause of the downturn. There was always predators, trapping wasn't that popular or widespread then and most take was near waterways anyway. There had been protection of raptors for decades before the Turkey rebound started. But, till 2000's the hunter pressure wasn't as intense as it became. It's the only big change in the turkeys world that they encountered during the downturn. I think it's too many hunters messing with to few turkeys as they try to reproduce.
I believe the hunting pressure by turkey hunting suddenly becoming real popular, all the birds being killed during peak breeding and the disruption of breeding is the cause of the downturn. There was always predators, trapping wasn't that popular or widespread then and most take was near waterways anyway. There had been protection of raptors for decades before the Turkey rebound started. But, till 2000's the hunter pressure wasn't as intense as it became. It's the only big change in the turkeys world that they encountered during the downturn. I think it's too many hunters messing with to few turkeys as they try to reproduce.
They need to just close the season for at least 5yrs and when it reopens have a 1 bird limit which must have at minimum a 10in beard and 1 1/4 spurs
Thats funny , you really have no clueSo your wanting to model season dates and bag limits based on input from hunters like Muddyboots and Knightrider. Ones a traditional member of the "it's over their done" crowd, and the other is going to setup an ambush on your fence, 100yrds from your house and birdfeeder.
I said when they delayed season it wouldn't help but the turkey gods on here said I was wrong. I want to preface my next statement by saying I love turkey hunting the most but the Twra needs to shut season down for at least two years. Not the popular decision but the best way to fix continued declining numbers.
bowhunterfanatic
Well-Known Member
I don't think this would help very much in the long term. Hunters aren't killing hens nor poults and they are what we need more of to survive and grow the population back.
Problem is the poults aren't being born cause they are never conceived, deer can and do breed at night without hunter interference ,but turkeys are up in trees at night, they live a daylight till dark existence where deer are 24/7 doing their thing. If you think about it, every time a gobbler opens his mouth within earshot, somebody with a gun is after him, disrupting the breeding process. It's not universal, every single instance of breeding isn't disrupted but if enough is, if you have X amount of barren hens because of it that would otherwise have been bred, you've got a falling population. I've seen far more barren hens in the summer now than I ever did before.
Maybe instead of closing the season, just don't have a spring season and only a one gobbler fall season for 2 years as a trial?
Oh, I'm serious. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Or we could just keep going as is till turkey hunting gets like quail hunting, a season in name only cause there aren't enough birds to make hunting worthwhile. I lived through the end of quail hunting, I loved it better than all the rest of other hunting put together. For all on here that love turkey hunting, you don't know what misery is till your game disappears. It sucks.
If they are not being conceived how did we have record hatches not only here throughout the South east in 2022? Remember that was with no delay. How have we killed on average 30k a year since 2000?
Oh im not talking about your crazy notion of closing season, im talking about your foolish notion that hens are not conceiving
Did we? I haven't see a great turnaround since 2022, even if we did one good year isn't gonna replace a decade and a half of decline. The fact is we don't have the turkey numbers we had 15 years ago. We kill 30k cause we have guns/shells that will do it at 70yds, we reap them, decoy them, bait them, blind hunt them and on and on. We've created the implements and methods to kill them and there is an army of hunters now out there doing it that didn't exist in the past. Now it's deer, turkeys and ducks that account for probably 90% of the hunting effort and most of the duck hunters and deer hunters are turkey hunters too.
I hear "aw it's predators", do you see 4 hawks sitting on powerlines now where in the past you saw on1? I' don't. Do you see coons, coyotes, bobcats flattened on the roads year around in mass? I' don't. If the predator numbers were so high, you would.
No game agency can or will say it's hunting pressure cause that blows there reasoning and finances for having a season out of the water.
Turkeys are not deer, the numbers are not even close, turkeys are a much smaller population and can't reproduce like deer can, they can't sustain heavy harvests year after year. I'll ask again, what has changes so drastically in the turkeys world all over is varied range in the last 15 years other than the growth in popularity of turkey hunting?
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Ok, were are the poults? Why so many totally barren hens? Did something get every single one of their poults that so many don't have even 1 or 2 left?Oh im not talking about your crazy notion of closing season, im talking about your foolish notion that hens are not conceiving
Does the TWRA even have an accurate number of how many turkey hunters are out there? Without tags now, going on a "honor"(of which there is little in this world) system for reporting kill numbers, do they even know the impact of hunting?
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Matter of fact yes, less than 30% ever make it of the egg, than yes again, another 70-80% get picked by every coyote,bobcat,hawk,owl,eagle,crow, feral cats, dogs, etc alive! If you think hunters are the biggest oroblem youve lost your mind, yes to many have been killed by the methods you mentioned but not near to the extent of natural predators. No poults = no adults, the hens arent barren her eggs and poults have been eaten!!!
I'm all for doing scientific studies, but we must understand that all studies are limited to the data collected, and do not take into account everything that can/is happening within any population at any given time. If we, as hunters (and supposedly conservationists) cannot show restraint and take care of what is in front of us without the agencies telling us what we can/cannot should/shouldn't do, then the resource will not be well taken care of. It is impossible for any agency to manage down to an individual property level and have any hope of success. It is dependent on the landowner/hunter.
bowhunterfanatic
Well-Known Member
Habitat loss and the decline in the number of people trapping come to top of my mind. Also less coon hunting going on, at least in my area. I agree we are probably killing too many of our dominant birds that were safe in the past, but I just can't agree that's our number one problem. Why are so many other states seeing the same decline? States like Mizzou and KY where the limits have been lower than ours for quite some time if my memory serves me correctly. What about Arkansas? In a matter of months it seems like they went from a turkey factory to almost no turkeys. Hunters didn't kill all of them.
TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
I agree with you, but you left out an equally significant aspect:
Data Interpretation!!!
Those "interpreting" the data are often biased, and proclaim misleading, even totally erroneous interpretations.
And, worse, the biased people often in charge of designing a particular "study" may frame the study with a bent towards their desired outcomes.
Absolutely…presuppositions play a huge part in science and they always have. That's why they are philosophy degrees.
