A vote for a change in season structure

[Setterman]

I would myself like to see it start in the middle of March and close the last of April.Shut off all Turkey hunting at noon every day. Limits are fine where they are now

Starting mud March would be disastrous to the population. Opening the season prior to the majority of breeding being completed would lead to hens without clutches.

 

[Southern Sportsman]

So:

What do we need to do to get some of this accomplished? When is the fish and wildlife commission meeting and when is the time for submissions? I'm starting to notice population drops in areas here on the west side with one farm that was awesome since I started hunting now completely devoid of turkeys. I love turkeys too much to do nothing.

And I think this is very different than the 1 buck limit debate. This isnt for the "trophy" hunters. This problem is negatively affecting every turkey hunter.

 

[catman529]

not a ton of meat and it really hurts the area you plan on hunting in the future springs.

where have you seen this happen?

There's plenty of meat on a hen, I've been killing em for 4 seasons and haven't noticed any less birds. I've said it before, if I do start seeing less turkeys, I will quit killing hens.


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[TNTomtaker01]

not a ton of meat and it really hurts the area you plan on hunting in the future springs.

where have you seen this happen?

There's plenty of meat on a hen, I've been killing em for 4 seasons and haven't noticed any less birds. I've said it before, if I do start seeing less turkeys, I will quit killing hens.


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When you do notice it will be too late.. I've seen farms go from loaded to nothing from bad hatches to die offs and it absolutely stinks.

 

[Setterman]

So:

What do we need to do to get some of this accomplished? When is the fish and wildlife commission meeting and when is the time for submissions? I'm starting to notice population drops in areas here on the west side with one farm that was awesome since I started hunting now completely devoid of turkeys. I love turkeys too much to do nothing.

And I think this is very different than the 1 buck limit debate. This isnt for the "trophy" hunters. This problem is negatively affecting every turkey hunter.

First thing would be getting rid of the turkey "biologists" in charge of our seasons etc. Until you cut the head off the snake nothing will change.

 

[REN]

not a ton of meat and it really hurts the area you plan on hunting in the future springs.

where have you seen this happen?

There's plenty of meat on a hen, I've been killing em for 4 seasons and haven't noticed any less birds. I've said it before, if I do start seeing less turkeys, I will quit killing hens.


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Its just my opinion but the gains of the meager amount of meat you get from hens vs the effect it has to the population is just not worth it. Plus i just don't get any rush or anything from shooting one except for maybe a sick feeling from doing it. again TO ME shooting a bunch of hens in the fall is nothing more then wanting to just go kill stuff...its not because guys are starving thats for sure.

 

[CDUB]

I like the seasons and limits the way they are. It gives hunters plenty of opportunities no matter what type of hunter you are. 4 spring birds isn't too many for someone with three or four hunting areas and all the open wmas. And if 4 is too many for your hunting ground, then don't kill 4. The fall season gives hunters a different challenge to get a bird with archery or gun during a period when calling isn't as effective. The fall limits are based on county population with some counties not allowing fall birds. And the bearded hens make up about .01% of the spring harvest. Not enough to matter. Hunters that want more birds on their hunting ground need to go to work on predator removal. Trapping is probably the best option. Coons, opossums, skunks, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, snakes, raptors, etc, etc, etc, eat more eggs and poults than hunters ever could, and they don't discriminate between hen/jake/gobbler. Every area is different but I believe coons are the #1 turkey predator in my area. I used to have a spot that was prime turkey habitat but had zero turkeys. This place also had more coons than any place I've seen... Some changes I would like to see are: 1.) add a bonus bird for large wma's with heavy populations (aedc, p cooper, catoosa, Natchez trace, etc.). 2.) add more g wardens to help enforce the limits and slow down the poachers, ( one redneck poacher with a .22 can do more damage to the turkey population than all the legal fall hunters together)......

 

[catman529]

not a ton of meat and it really hurts the area you plan on hunting in the future springs.

where have you seen this happen?

There's plenty of meat on a hen, I've been killing em for 4 seasons and haven't noticed any less birds. I've said it before, if I do start seeing less turkeys, I will quit killing hens.


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When you do notice it will be too late.. I've seen farms go from loaded to nothing from bad hatches to die offs and it absolutely stinks.

if we suffer something like that, it won't be because the fall turkey season. I hope we never have a die off like the southern counties, and if we have a bad hatch, then I won't hunt that fall unless I kill a gobbler while deer hunting.


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[TheLBLman]

My wishes are simple, no jake harvests, no hens ever including fall, and if the season dates need to be tweaked I'll adjust and be fine, also drop back to a 2-3 spring gobbler limit..

What he said with maybe allowing a juvi to kill 1 jake if they wanted to but definitely outlaw killing the hens.

x 2

IMO, allow jakes as a legal bird only during the special "juvenile" weekend hunt.

While it's true so many other factors can make a larger difference to the turkey population than whatever we hunters do, or don't do, it's total stupidity to use that as an excuse to make no changes for the improvement of our turkey populations.

I'd bet 80% of the turkeys are killed by the same 20% of the hunters each year, and a slight reduction in the spring limit (such as going from 4 to 3) would in fact make a positive difference. There are quite a few among this highly annually successful 20% who will typically hold back one tag for their next week(s) hunting purposes, rather than limit out. Instead of their quickly killing 2 or 3 birds (under the 4 bird limit), they would alter their harvests to quickly killing 1 or 2 birds, saving more birds annually than the raw numbers of how many hunters currently kill 4 vs 3 might suggest.

I'm fine with whatever, but believe we would overall improve our turkey populations and turkey hunting if we had a little lower limit (2 or 3 instead of 4 in the spring), and totally eliminated fall turkey hunting. I also like the idea of opening the season 1 week later, and don't care whether it ends the same time as present or ends a week sooner as well. But then, my perspective is more about the overall enjoyment of the hunting experience, rather than how many I can possibly kill without causing obvious damage to the turkey population.

 

[TheLBLman]

plenty of meat on a hen, I've been killing em for 4 seasons and haven't noticed any less birds. I've said it before, if I do start seeing less turkeys, I will quit killing hens.

When you do notice it will be too late.. I've seen farms go from loaded to nothing from bad hatches to die offs and it absolutely stinks.

Exactly.

Of course, some turkey biologists will point out that a certain high percentage of the hens will die before spring, period, even without fall hunting. But does that make an argument to kill some more by having a fall season? We have a problem, so we should make it worse?

 

[Donk]

If it weren't for a TWRA bio,named Jack Murry (RIP).We wouldn't have any turkey's we do now.Of course many other people were instrumental too.Dont believe to much breeding going on in mid March,they still in the big winter flocks.But I am probably wrong about this too.Still say a cut off at noon would be a good thing,takes a little stress off of them.

 

[Setterman]

If it weren't for a TWRA bio,named Jack Murry (RIP).We wouldn't have any turkey's we do now.Of course many other people were instrumental too.Dont believe to much breeding going on in mid March,they still in the big winter flocks.But I am probably wrong about this too.Still say a cut off at noon would be a good thing,takes a little stress off of them.

There's a ton of breeding happening in Mid March, most of it I would suspect.

I'm fine with the noon cutoff as well, and agree that it would let the birds have all day to mill around.

 

[WRbowhunter]

Do away with the Fall turkey hunting and have beard restrictions. No beard shorter than 8 inches or a bird 3 1/2 years or older or spurs 1 1/2 in length. If its not a trophy then no one has any business shooting one. But seriously who do some of you think you are. Just because you are at a certain stage of your hunting why do you think EVERYONE should hunt at that stage. That's either Deer or Turkeys.

 

[Setterman]

Do away with the Fall turkey hunting and have beard restrictions. No beard shorter than 8 inches or a bird 3 1/2 years or older or spurs 1 1/2 in length. If its not a trophy then no one has any business shooting one. But seriously who do some of you think you are. Just because you are at a certain stage of your hunting why do you think EVERYONE should hunt at that stage. That's either Deer or Turkeys.

I think I'm a guy who enjoys have gobbling turkeys in the woods that can become limited by harvesting jakes the prior season. Jakes should be outlawed except for youth season in my opinion.

 

[megalomaniac]

Do away with the Fall turkey hunting and have beard restrictions. No beard shorter than 8 inches or a bird 3 1/2 years or older or spurs 1 1/2 in length. If its not a trophy then no one has any business shooting one. But seriously who do some of you think you are. Just because you are at a certain stage of your hunting why do you think EVERYONE should hunt at that stage. That's either Deer or Turkeys.

Honestly, I wouldn't give 2c for your opinion, because I could care less about it (or what any one individual wants). My only concern is for the birds themselves and the overall flock. If shifting the 6 weeks of hunting back a week or two will help produce more birds, I'm all in favor. If ensuring the following spring there is a male bird capable of fertilizing hens, I'm all in favor. And in areas where the population is less than 75% of the long term average, I'm all in favor of eliminating all hen harvests.

Sorry your panties are in such a wad, but this is not about hunting 'trophy' turkeys, it's just about having any gobblers to hunt at all (while ensuring it remains a naturally renewable resource- which we HAVE NOT been doing.).

Just because I choose to call in bird after bird and NOT kill it doesn't mean I don't want you to be successful. On the contrary, I'd LOVE for there to be so many birds we actually hit what TWRA projected as our annual kill... 75,000. Even if I don't kill a single one, I'd be getting 25 or 30 within gun range in a season if the population were back to what it used to be... and that is all I'm really interested in.

 

[AT Hiker]

Do away with the Fall turkey hunting and have beard restrictions. No beard shorter than 8 inches or a bird 3 1/2 years or older or spurs 1 1/2 in length. If its not a trophy then no one has any business shooting one. But seriously who do some of you think you are. Just because you are at a certain stage of your hunting why do you think EVERYONE should hunt at that stage. That's either Deer or Turkeys.

Im guessing you missed the point, then again 50% of the people on the 2 buck limit missed the point as well.




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[REN]

Do away with the Fall turkey hunting and have beard restrictions. No beard shorter than 8 inches or a bird 3 1/2 years or older or spurs 1 1/2 in length. If its not a trophy then no one has any business shooting one. But seriously who do some of you think you are. Just because you are at a certain stage of your hunting why do you think EVERYONE should hunt at that stage. That's either Deer or Turkeys.

Honestly, I wouldn't give 2c for your opinion, because I could care less about it (or what any one individual wants). My only concern is for the birds themselves and the overall flock. If shifting the 6 weeks of hunting back a week or two will help produce more birds, I'm all in favor. If ensuring the following spring there is a male bird capable of fertilizing hens, I'm all in favor. And in areas where the population is less than 75% of the long term average, I'm all in favor of eliminating all hen harvests.

Sorry your panties are in such a wad, but this is not about hunting 'trophy' turkeys, it's just about having any gobblers to hunt at all (while ensuring it remains a naturally renewable resource- which we HAVE NOT been doing.).

Just because I choose to call in bird after bird and NOT kill it doesn't mean I don't want you to be successful. On the contrary, I'd LOVE for there to be so many birds we actually hit what TWRA projected as our annual kill... 75,000. Even if I don't kill a single one, I'd be getting 25 or 30 within gun range in a season if the population were back to what it used to be... and that is all I'm really interested in.

My man!! Well said


Joshua 24:15
"But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."


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[Setterman]

Do away with the Fall turkey hunting and have beard restrictions. No beard shorter than 8 inches or a bird 3 1/2 years or older or spurs 1 1/2 in length. If its not a trophy then no one has any business shooting one. But seriously who do some of you think you are. Just because you are at a certain stage of your hunting why do you think EVERYONE should hunt at that stage. That's either Deer or Turkeys.

Honestly, I wouldn't give 2c for your opinion, because I could care less about it (or what any one individual wants). My only concern is for the birds themselves and the overall flock. If shifting the 6 weeks of hunting back a week or two will help produce more birds, I'm all in favor. If ensuring the following spring there is a male bird capable of fertilizing hens, I'm all in favor. And in areas where the population is less than 75% of the long term average, I'm all in favor of eliminating all hen harvests.

Sorry your panties are in such a wad, but this is not about hunting 'trophy' turkeys, it's just about having any gobblers to hunt at all (while ensuring it remains a naturally renewable resource- which we HAVE NOT been doing.).

Just because I choose to call in bird after bird and NOT kill it doesn't mean I don't want you to be successful. On the contrary, I'd LOVE for there to be so many birds we actually hit what TWRA projected as our annual kill... 75,000. Even if I don't kill a single one, I'd be getting 25 or 30 within gun range in a season if the population were back to what it used to be... and that is all I'm really interested in.

You and I've had our differences over the years, but you're spot on and I agree 10,000%

 

[WRbowhunter]

Do away with the Fall turkey hunting and have beard restrictions. No beard shorter than 8 inches or a bird 3 1/2 years or older or spurs 1 1/2 in length. If its not a trophy then no one has any business shooting one. But seriously who do some of you think you are. Just because you are at a certain stage of your hunting why do you think EVERYONE should hunt at that stage. That's either Deer or Turkeys.

Im guessing you missed the point, then again 50% of the people on the 2 buck limit missed the point as well.

I think the other 50% get your point we just disagree with it 100%. but that's Ok everyone has an opinion



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[WRbowhunter]

"Honestly, I wouldn't give 2c for your opinion, because I could care less about it (or what any one individual wants). My only concern is for the birds themselves and the overall flock."

Seriously, Are you giving ITS ALL FOR THE CHILDREN speech.