Are we more effective hunters?

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Boll Weevil

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Waiting on a bird to fire back up offers a fellow lots of time to ponder, and I spent some time thinking about some of the dialogue in the "Zones for Turkeys" thread. Sitting there watching the grass grow the question that arose was, "When it comes to killing birds are we more effective to a point that we can actually remove more birds from a population than can be sustained through reproduction?"

Setterman's comment about the use of decoys really got me thinking. There's no doubt in my mind that gobblers die these days, that otherwise would not have fallen to a load of #5s because of a decoy. To be clear, hopefully this thread doesn't go the direction of what tactics should/shouldn't be employed...that ain't the point.

Shell and choke combinations...same thing. Every turkey my granddaddy killed was with a 2-3/4" load of 4s inside of 25 yards; guns these days can kill a bird deader than an anvil at twice that distance.

And blinds? My idea of a blind as a kid hunter was some river cane/a few pine boughs stuck in the ground or maybe hunkering down behind a blowdown. Nowadays you can literally popup a "hay bale" in the middle of 50 acre field, stick a flock of decoys in the ground, and pull the trigger on a bird 57 yards away and never have made the first peep on call.

Hunting styles and personal ethics vary widely as do laws from state to state. That's not really what I'm pondering. Thanks to restoration efforts, habitat management, and game laws we've got lots birds to chase for the most part. But is it possible that "hunting technology" leading to dead turkeys has actually outpaced the ability of the bird to replenish itself in some areas?
 
Extremly long post...

I know what your saying, and I have never really thought much about these things until yourself and Setterman, AlabamaSwamper, and SouthernSportsman, among others have made mention of it recently.

Every being in this world has their God given right to hunt the wild turkey, and every being has the right to kill turkeys. But now with all of the modern technology and stuff, many gobblers are getting killed that were not previously getting killed. Used to use copperplated lead in 2-3/4" shells in 4 or 6 shot with a built in modified choke. Past 35 yards was dang stretching it, and really uncalled for. Now we have hunters at the pattern range, looking for what gives them the easiest path to success if that gobbler hangs up at 80 yards then they can kill them.

Turkeys are notorious for hanging up at 60-70 yards when they cannot see the "hen" that is calling them. It is their instinct, for them to gobble and strut, and the hen come to them if she wishes to be bred. But now, we have made that no problem at all. Just get you a high dollar decoy and blind, and you don't have to worry about him hanging up at 70 yards. Get you a super duper full rhino/hippo choke with Nitros and kill him when he gets at 71.2 yards.

IMO, that was always part of the "game" of turkey hunting. To get in a good position, set up where he "has to come look for you" and when you see him he is already within 40 yards, a good ethical shotgun range. It is tough for this to happen, hence it is called turkey hunting and not turkey killing. It is extremely hard to get a good set up on a gobbler in open hard woods, before green up. It is extremely hard, nearly impossible, to call a gobbler out of a big pasture. But with these decoys and blinds, it is actually "easy."

Now comes this point. A limit of four gobblers is suffice, and hard for most hunters to reach. But now we have more and more turkey hunters and turkey hunting gadgets and gizmos, plus long range almost rifle type shotguns, it is much easier for a person to kill his four gobblers. So it looks like to me the solution may be to shorten the season, delay it a couple weeks, and/or make it a 2 or 3 gobbler per season limit. Or make some kind of modification to the uses of decoys. Alabama had it right when decoys were illegal down there, then 10 or so years ago they legalized them and I believe it is a big mistake.

I have no problem whatsoever with decoys, blinds, or long range shotguns. What I do have issues with is when normal human beings go out and kill these turkeys just because they can. And then brag about it because they think they "outsmarted a bird" but in reality that walnut sized brain just can't understand/remember that a look-alike turkey doesn't stand motionless for hours, and that brush piles do not automatically appear in the middle of fields.

Also if you look at the past, rifles used to be legal method of take for turkey hunting, and now they no longer are. Safety would be main issue, but also, it is very unsporting. Turkeys are turkeys, and they like to get in open areas and strut and gobble and do their thing. Rifles made it too easy to shoot turkeys 200 yards away. Turkeys will go extinct before they can adapt to stay out of the open. God created them with keen eyesight to use in the middle of fields so that they can flee from predators. He created them with survival skill sets, (eyes, hearing, and nervous temperment.) He did not create them with "smarts" such as yall's precious whitetail bucks. (I enjoy deer hunting, but it does get on my nerves some.)
Turkeys adapt to hunting pressure no doubt, by moving out, not gobbling, staying on the roost for hours after daylight, etc. But they cannot adapt to be nocturnal like deer and other animals can.

Wild turkeys are a delicate species. We need to do a better job of taking care of it before it is too late. Look at bobwhite quail. They gone.
 
For me it's not a matter of ethics....it comes down to the authenticity of the hunt. If I call a bird to the gun and kill it, then I know I won the game.

If I hide in a pop and throw out a bunch of decoys and then shoot a bird at 60 yards....did I win the game, or did the gear win the game? Am I a turkey hunter?

On occasion I will use a single hen, but rarely take it anymore. I specifically won't use a jake or tom decoy. I don't want a Tom running in because he's PO'd a at a decoy.
 
Yes we are and there are more of us.

The decoy thing as I said in the other topic allows less talented hunters to have vastly more success than traditional methods. Therefore hunters who normally go home empty handed now kill because it's pretty easy to stake a few decoys out in a field and as long as the dominant bird sees them he probably will die. Let's be honest that approach in most situations doesn't require a ton of skill, or knowledge of turkeys to be successful.

The htl and choke craze has also certainly upped the kill tally. Birds that traditionally lived another day are now killed at ranges that were unthinkable 10 years ago. Including some really absurd ranges which are embarrassing to hear when someone mentions them.

Great points in the original post and these two were gigantic game changers and do make hunters who normally don't have what it takes to harvest walk out of the woods with a bird. At a point it has to have an impact on the population.

Also killing of hens used to be taboo now somehow it's become cool to kill hens in the spring, where I come from people get blackballed from town for killing a hen turkey
 
Disclaimer on my above post; I have only hunted in TN, AL, and FL. And the places I hunted in these was woods and fields mixed, with mainly woods.

I have no idea how to hunt turkeys up in Kentucky and Mid-West states where it is more fields than woods. I only know one person that went and hunted up there, and he had to crawl up on them through ditches and such because he had no decoys or blind. Too open to get too close to call them into shotgun range. he said they would pretty much fly straight from their trees into the field and stay there almost all day. A guy from down here never using blinds and decoys said he wished he would had something like that.
 
I know in my area, 10 years ago, few people turkey hunted and we had more birds than we do now. Now everyone that hunts, turkey hunts. Theres a lot of competition for the same few birds. My belief is the main factor is overharvest of gobblers.
 
I was really just thinking about "game changing" innovation that could fundamentally impact the may we manage healthy game populations.

I know hunters, friends, that by their own admission are not very good turkey hunters (their words not mine). These folks now manage to scratch out a bird or 2 using nothing more than decoys and a blind...oh...and a shell. They may have a pot call in their pocket but I honestly don't know if they know how to run it. Again, no judgement from me, just an observation that these are birds that perhaps used to carryover from year to year.

I'm uncertain if Native Americans on ponies would have wiped out bison with bow and arrow, but the development of the 45-70 Sharps changed that population dynamic with startling swiftness. Waterfowl with a punt gun; a market hunter could take out a whole flock with one boom. Enter the iPhone...in some states it's actually illegal to use mobile devices to aid in the taking of wild game.

The State reserves the right to render a particular method of taking game an "unfair advantage." I wonder if there is periodic assessment of new technology and the impact to harvest outcomes? The more I talked to myself the more I agreed with myself (or disagreed with myself...I disremember but anyhoo) that we may indeed be more effective hunters because of innovation.

As an aside, this is the kind of stuff that gets pondered when the dang turkeys hush...if they'd just gobble I wouldn't have to deal with these aimless wandering cerebral events. :crazy:
 
I wasn�t going to respond, but I decided to even though, I�m sure I will get bashed a bit. I am one of the hunters that you and the usual suspects are referring to. Well Kinda. I never use decoys, I am not a good caller, though I�m working on it, and I have never hunted turkey from a blind. I do however had an Indian Creek Choke (no mine is not a recall model), I do shoot Mag blends, but may switch to Longbeard LR to save money, I have a scope on my turkey gun, one of the best investments I�ve made, and I pattern the gun to 50 yds. Why? To be sure that if I want to make a shot that far I can.

That being said, I have never shot a turkey past 40 yds., except one time last year, when I got my first bird of the season at 47 yds. I roosted him , set up on him the next morning, and he pitched to 47 yds. Looked closer and I shot. Dropped him right there. All my other turkeys have been within 35 yds. I shot one at 8 yds. on Priest once, that I belly crawled and snuck up to. Now everyone on this thread and many others seems to agree that turkey have good eyesight and are fidgety by nature. If all this is true how can it not take some form of woodsmanship to sneak up on them. Trust me I�ve seen some comical attempts on Priest. The answer is it does take skill, but it doesn�t meet the requirements of the �turkey hunters� so they have to huff and puff about it.

Now I know the intention of this thread wasn�t to bash anyone�s style, but many that have chimed in have done that on more than one occasion, this season. I understand there is an art to locating, setting up on, and calling a bird in. I commend those than can do it, but when you get all butt hurt over the fact that turkey hunters can now kill birds easier, it is no different than a trophy deer hunter bashing someone for killing a small buck, or the fly fisherman that look down the brim of their nose at you on the Caney because you have a spinning reel.

With that in mind, calls have been around for thousands of years, but I�ll bet our ancestors, especially those in the 1800�s and early 1900�s snuck up on a turkey or two and shot it. In fact, I�ll bet most European settlers were using calls all the time and were rather using their technology to kill game. I know they nearly made some of the animals extinct, but they didn�t have laws and regs like we do today.

So to answer your question, yes technology makes it easier to kill turkey�s, but that doesn�t mean we should not use it. Do I think we can kill them faster than they can repopulate? I doubt it, but unfortunately only time will tell. Luckily for us, we have people that watch these things and adjust accordingly. I limited out in my first official turkey season, 2 toms, and 2 jakes. Second season, struck out. Third season, limited again, with 2 toms, and 2 jakes. Last season 3 birds, 1 tom, 2 jakes. This season, I limited out all birds were shot at 30 yds. or less. All 4 were toms, and I passed a Jake. I got lucky on one, but I�ll take it. People go through stages. I can�t help that technology has allowed some startups to skip the whole �learning phase� of turkey calling, but it is what it is. Technology is going to continue to change, we just have to manage it. Right now it appears TWRA feels we can take 4 gobblers, in a couple of years they may say only 2 gobblers, only time will tell. Until then just hunt the way you want, and enjoy it.
 
Bone Collector said:
I wasn�t going to respond, but I decided to even though, I�m sure I will get bashed a bit. I am one of the hunters that you and the usual suspects are referring to. Well Kinda. I never use decoys, I am not a good caller, though I�m working on it, and I have never hunted turkey from a blind. I do however had an Indian Creek Choke (no mine is not a recall model), I do shoot Mag blends, but may switch to Longbeard LR to save money, I have a scope on my turkey gun, one of the best investments I�ve made, and I pattern the gun to 50 yds. Why? To be sure that if I want to make a shot that far I can.
Click to expand...

You're not being bashed here. Everyone understands that everybody starts at square one. Some had good mentors, some had bad mentors, and some learned on their own. Turkey hunting (as in locating, setting up, and calling) takes skill that can only be honed over time and trial and error. I have snuck and killed turkeys and may do it again one day if I get frustrated enough, and I have killed them over decoys, and I still shoot HTL. I have, however, developed a strong distaste for blinds and strutter decoys, especially when people use them exclusively and act as though they are Archibald Rutledge when they kill 2 gobblers the first week. It sounds to me like your are learning and hunting turkeys on public ground without blinds and decoys. Very commendable.
 
Boll Weevil said:
"When it comes to killing birds are we more effective to a point that we can actually remove more birds from a population than can be sustained through reproduction?"
Click to expand...
So long as only males are legal game, not a huge risk.

HOWEVER, relatively high sustained harvests of adult males can greatly harm the quality of the turkey hunting. Without lots of 2-yr-old and older Toms in the population, you have much less gobbling, and less breeding success. Jakes are not as effective at breeding as older Toms, so without question, it would cause some harm to the ability to sustain a population if no 2-yr-old or older Toms existed.

But it would generally take a lot of jake killing this year to have few 2-yr-old Toms next Spring, and those 2-yr-old and older Toms typically get much of the breeding done before turkey season opens. Not to mention, they're not all killed on the opening weekend. Bigger problems than potential for overharvest (of males) include the potential for poor nesting success and poor poult survival, often from flooding and excessive predation.

One other thing I've been wondering about: Wonder how often a hen is accidentally killed when a gobbler is shot? To my knowledge, I've never done this, but I have many times passed up easy shots on longbeards simply for fear of hitting a nearby hen (or another longbeard). I'd speculate all hunters don't pass up such shots as quickly as others.

I also had a hunter tell me once how he killed a strutting gobbler, then noticed a dead nesting hen he had also killed with the same shot. The hen was on a nest about 15 yards behind the gobbler.

For sure, our hunting of male turkeys also increases the mortality of at least a few hens. I've walked into turkey nests while hunting, and I'd speculate anytime we flush birds they suddenly become an easier mark for other predators (such as coyotes, bobcats, etc.).

We probably would have a little better quality turkey hunting for most turkey hunters if we had a 2 or 3-bird limit instead of our current 4-bird limit, and this might give a little advantage to sustaining the ongoing population as well. Same could be said if we shortened our turkey season a little, although I would prefer just a little lower bird limit.
 
Spring hunting-related mortality rates (legal harvest, illegal kills, and crippling loss) of
more than 30�35% of the male population are thought to adversely affect hunter
satisfaction because the proportion of adults in the population and harvest will decline
(Vangilder and Kurzejeski 1995).
 
"Are we more effective hunters?"

As compared to say 20 years ago and further back, I'd say "no", we are not more effective hunters, but we are more effective "killers" of turkeys.

Most of my turkey hunting has been done with a 2 3/4" chambered gun using the same shells I hunted squirrels (go back far enough and it was my duck shells that doubled for turkeys, dating myself pre-steel for waterfowl). In times past we had much shorter range shotguns/loads, no decoys, no optical sights, no pop-up blinds, even less effective camo clothing. Using our latest "advances" in equipment and technology, it's definitely much easier to "kill" a turkey, without being as skilled a hunter.
 
Southern Sportsman said:
Bone Collector said:
I wasn�t going to respond, but I decided to even though, I�m sure I will get bashed a bit. I am one of the hunters that you and the usual suspects are referring to. Well Kinda. I never use decoys, I am not a good caller, though I�m working on it, and I have never hunted turkey from a blind. I do however had an Indian Creek Choke (no mine is not a recall model), I do shoot Mag blends, but may switch to Longbeard LR to save money, I have a scope on my turkey gun, one of the best investments I�ve made, and I pattern the gun to 50 yds. Why? To be sure that if I want to make a shot that far I can.
Click to expand...

You're not being bashed here. Everyone understands that everybody starts at square one. Some had good mentors, some had bad mentors, and some learned on their own. Turkey hunting (as in locating, setting up, and calling) takes skill that can only be honed over time and trial and error. I have snuck and killed turkeys and may do it again one day if I get frustrated enough, and I have killed them over decoys, and I still shoot HTL. I have, however, developed a strong distaste for blinds and strutter decoys, especially when people use them exclusively and act as though they are Archibald Rutledge when they kill 2 gobblers the first week. It sounds to me like your are learning and hunting turkeys on public ground without blinds and decoys. Very commendable.
Click to expand...

This sums up my views pretty good. I don't shoot HTL mainly because I get a desired pattern out of a lead load, I shoot a Burris Speed Bead to compensate for my issues with the stock on my gun, and I shoot a kicks choke. So I get the pattern thing, but it seems the goal for a lot of hunters is to not worry about calling one close, and more so extended the range of the weapon to compensate for a poor set up, bad calling etc etc etc. not all hunters who shoot this, but a bunch. Which to address the original question does make us more effective

I'm with Southern Sportsman on the blind/decoy stuff, I really have issues with this and most understand my view. Again relating this to the original question it does make for more effective turkey (killers) hunters.

Yes, as a collective group because of this stuff more hunters have far more success than they would without it.

It's easy to see the difference. I'd love to see a study where some counties have decoys outlawed and compare the harvests with years when decoys were used. It would no doubt show how effective it is in black and white numbers
 
smstone22 said:
Spring hunting-related mortality rates (legal harvest, illegal kills, and crippling loss) of
more than 30�35% of the male population are thought to adversely affect hunter
satisfaction because the proportion of adults in the population and harvest will decline
(Vangilder and Kurzejeski 1995).
Click to expand...
Don't know if that "includes" or "excludes" jakes, but I certainly believe our statewide hunting-related mortality of 2-yr-old and older males greatly exceeds 30-35%. Heck, that happened in the first week of the season where I was hunting.
 
Jcalder said:
I'd be more concerned about predators than I would hunter or killers.
Click to expand...

I can legally kill the predators that I don't like their style, can't say the same for hunters :o :D I'm completely joking btw
 
I could care less if Gobbler decoys were outlawed or not. To show you where I am as far as turkey hunting is concerned, I told my brother this year not to set up a blind, because they'd see it and would avoid it. From what i am reading on here, they don't care about them, which is shocking to be honest. I see guys set them up on Priest right on the fields and I always think they are dumb :D .

I also have not bought a gobbler decoy, because I was thinking it could be more harm than good.

I learn a lot from this site. One day I will call one in, but right now I seem to find myself on top of them (like within 80 yds) and if I call they will just look in my direction and know something ain't right when they don't see the hen. Then I am in a situation where I have a 60-80 yd shot. So I generally choose not to call and find away to cut the distance without getting caught, then shoot him.
 

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