Another Angle on KY dominating TN in turkey management

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Setterman

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If you take the same dates that KY was open and compare those to the same dates during the TN season....April 18th-May 10th. KY killed 31,000 birds to us killing just over 10,000 birds. That's grotesque when you look at the unbelievably high numbers of successful hunters in KY versus here in TN.

With that said, opening week is when the most birds are available for harvest and most vulnerable for a variety of reasons. During opening week TN hunters tagged 8,000 birds.

Being generous let's add those to the 10,000 from above to make it a more fair comparison. We still get dominated by 13,000 birds with us having more hunters, higher limits, and more days.

There's no way to sugar coat our situation and it's way past the time for one of our illustrious turkey biologists to step up and address the situation rather then hide as they're doing now.
 
Have you been emailing our commissioners? I need to put some hard facts together and start emailing myself


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catman529":m29nupch said:
Have you been emailing our commissioners? I need to put some hard facts together and start emailing myself


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More then just emailing, making phone calls etc. What I am being told is that the biologists at TWRA do not think there is any issues, and that there is no plans to do anything. In other words they think everything is great. To be honest I have a very hard time maintaining my professionalism when I hear this kinds of things, and it infuriates me that our turkey biologists do not interact at any level with the hunters in this state the best I can tell.

Look at Big Game Guy and others on the deer side, they are open and upfront with why they do the things they do. You may not agree, but at least you hear their voice. Why do the turkey people sit on a throne and not conduct themselves in the same manner? After all their salaries are paid for by us, right?
 
I have been complaining for 10 years or more. Falls on deaf ears. All of my local game officers share my thoughts and told me they couldn't even get anything done. I was told it was to sell license and 4 bird limit sell license. It's a dad gum shame to go from what I would have considered the best place in the country to turkey hunt to what we have now. It's very sad in my opinion. Watching a flock of 100 go to roost in the fall as you sit in a deer stand is a sight to behold.
 
It's amazing to me that 4000 birds have been killed in KY this last week..... Trust me... It didn't happen this last week.. They may have been checked in but they were killed earlier in the season....
 
I agree with all of you. Tennessee used to be the best place in the country to hunt eastern wild turkeys.
It baffles me that some of your stories say that the guys in charge will literally do nothing.

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Roger Applegate is the turkey program coordinator. He has been quoted as saying recently that "the turkey population is stable and nothing would change dramatically this season in terms of harvest numbers". That's what we're dealing with folks......... It would be great if a well spoken, educated person could present the cold hard facts to the TWRC this month.


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Fleet Fox":2sbwq4kk said:
No shortage of them around here.
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Since I know you hunt with catman and he's spoken out numerous times contrary to your opinion. I suspect your either naive to what's happening, new to the sport, or both.

For years I've been isolated from any issues but they're here now and very real

Facts and stats don't lie, and show a disturbing down turn in our hunting.

Keep your head in the sand and one day soon you'll understand
 
Setterman":1nlkb048 said:
Fleet Fox":1nlkb048 said:
No shortage of them around here.
Click to expand...

Since I know you hunt with catman and he's spoken out numerous times contrary to your opinion. I suspect your either naive to what's happening, new to the sport, or both.

For years I've been isolated from any issues but they're here now and very real

Facts and stats don't lie, and show a disturbing down turn in our hunting.

Keep your head in the sand and one day soon you'll understand
Click to expand...
Catman hunts with him on his private farm in another county. Big difference see my post above. Lol.
It's sad more don't see it. they see birds in fields driving down the road and think the population is doing good
Kind of one of those done believe everything you see senerios!!!
 
While some places may still have a strong population there are a lot of places that used to covered up in turkeys that are pretty much void of turkeys now, take for instance the farms I hunt in Giles county, I've seen a major decline in those properties over the last 3 years and it's not because I killed them all out either, I try to space my kills out to 7 farms in middle tn, people say oh you've killed them all out but I seriously haven't, it's not just the farms I hunt in Giles that don't have turkeys anymore it places all around them too, usually when I get done hunting over there I take a certain route to go home just to look at turkeys, 3 years ago there would be strutters in every field with several hens and when they were still bunched up in there winter flocks you would see 100's of them in all those fields I'm talking about, I remember 3 years ago me and my hunting partner ride over there in late February to check our farms out and on our way home I bet we seen 700-800 turkeys total, there was one big field that had 350 birds in it, this year I've just a couple of gobblers and just a few hens on that whole route, and I've rode it countless times, they're just not there anymore, all the locals say the same thing, sure Giles still has a good overall turkey population but if something don't change I'm afraid more and more good places will end up like the farms I speak of.
 
Setterman":25ilb2t8 said:
Fleet Fox":25ilb2t8 said:
No shortage of them around here.
Click to expand...

Since I know you hunt with catman and he's spoken out numerous times contrary to your opinion. I suspect your either naive to what's happening, new to the sport, or both.

For years I've been isolated from any issues but they're here now and very real

Facts and stats don't lie, and show a disturbing down turn in our hunting.

Keep your head in the sand and one day soon you'll understand
Click to expand...
he's right there is no shortage there, the population is thriving. but I'm thinking that doesn't represent the state as a whole.


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I looked up Roger Applegate's email but i'm not sure it's the same guy. Shows some p'fessor at UT...is that him?
 
Setterman":18g4s256 said:
Fleet Fox":18g4s256 said:
No shortage of them around here.
Click to expand...

Since I know you hunt with catman and he's spoken out numerous times contrary to your opinion. I suspect your either naive to what's happening, new to the sport, or both.

For years I've been isolated from any issues but they're here now and very real

Facts and stats don't lie, and show a disturbing down turn in our hunting.

Keep your head in the sand and one day soon you'll understand
Click to expand...

I control my population of deer and turkeys. I work hard to provide habitat for them to thrive. Keeping my head in the sand won't affect me one way or the other.

I'm assuming most of those not seeing turkeys are hunting public land or not putting in time on private land to help build the population.
 
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