^^^ Watch this video to hear Dr. Harper's perspective.
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Huntaholic
Well-Known Member
im not necessarily advocating this, but if you want to help our turkeys, kill EVERY hawk, owl, bobcat and coyote you see. Good Lord willing, next year will make 40 years that Ive been turkey hunting. Ive seen it go from NOTHING, to turkeys everywhere, and in some spots now, back to nothing. TWRA tries to manage a whole state and make everybody happy, it doesnt work. Manage your resources yourself!
Boll Weevil
Well-Known Member
Speaking of reverting any given aspect of the regs, I don't hardly see a way to do that without some sort of blowback. Public vs private, these counties but not those counties, only landowners with greater than X acres, start dates by region/units, etc. On the other hand regs for deer can be all over the place so maybe in reality, it wouldn't be a big deal to folks.
Unless you have manage thousands of acres that simply will not work. What I do on my 400 acres won't change a thing if the hunters hunting around me kill every turkey they possibly can.
I find this to be narrow minded. I will definitely watch the video you posted though. We have decades of research at our fingertips for free, and we choose to ignore it. Maybe Chamberlain is wrong on some things, but I would prefer a put our heads together and study all possible solutions opposed to the train of thought that Chamberlain just wants to take away the best hunting and keep me from killing my 4 turkeys.
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ImThere
Well-Known Member
Agreed
Well they are but it don't make them any less right!
This club sucks!!
Huntaholic
Well-Known Member
I get what youre saying. I am blessed to have property that I either own or lease in 4 counties and I try to only take a set amount from each place. Some places I wont take anything. I am fortunate to still have birds on them all. I couldnt care less if the limit is 1 or 10, if its 10 Im going to kill 10, I just have to spread it out even more. Like I said, I know I am BLESSED to have the resources I do. Heres the thing: just like when the deer seasons and units where the way they were, I could hunt unit A and kill 4 bucks archery, go to unit B and kill so many more, then 2 bucks in MZ, and another 4 with a rifle. Most I ever killed was 14 one year, 12 of those being bucks. I was young and dumb and all about the numbers. Now Im old and dumb and when it comes to turkeys, Im still all about the numbers lol. BUT we as hunters have to have some common sense and micro manage our areas for what the population will sustain and grow from. Just like when they started dropping the deer limit and even before, if I KILL IT I KNOW ITS DEAD. IF I let it walk, it has a chance to make it.
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Very difficult to trust twra on anything.Let's trust TWRA on this and if it works we should have many more to hunt in the future.
Wrangler95
Well-Known Member
I bet most hunters that object to the late start of season are mostly in counties that dont have low numbers of turkey's like some of us.Just guessing!
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
In my mind, the most important things to look at with the delayed season opening are number of NR hunting the first 2 weeks compared to years past, BUT also, the number of NR hunting May 15 thru 31st.
I suspect there will be significantly fewer NR pressuring the birds mid April compared to around Apr 1st opener in the past. But I bet there will be a lot more NR coming to TN to hunt end of May this year compared to when last week of season was May 8 thru 15. Why would a southern NR travel all the way to MI, WI, or New England when he can just hop one or two states over to TN? But I bet the net effect is going to be positive in reduction of NR killing birds. If not perhaps TN should consider implementing a limit on public NR hunters like MS (only the first 2 weeks of season).
I've said before... you DONT want to have an early start date compared to the rest of the country due to NR influx...
If you west TN hunters want, I would have no objections to opening the state west of the TN River March 15, ending May 1st... as long as middle TN stays April 15 thru May 31 (of course, keep the 2 bird statewide limit). Be a LOT fewer TN, AR, LA, AL, MO coming to MS for the Mar 15 opener.
I suspect there will be significantly fewer NR pressuring the birds mid April compared to around Apr 1st opener in the past. But I bet there will be a lot more NR coming to TN to hunt end of May this year compared to when last week of season was May 8 thru 15. Why would a southern NR travel all the way to MI, WI, or New England when he can just hop one or two states over to TN? But I bet the net effect is going to be positive in reduction of NR killing birds. If not perhaps TN should consider implementing a limit on public NR hunters like MS (only the first 2 weeks of season).
I've said before... you DONT want to have an early start date compared to the rest of the country due to NR influx...
If you west TN hunters want, I would have no objections to opening the state west of the TN River March 15, ending May 1st... as long as middle TN stays April 15 thru May 31 (of course, keep the 2 bird statewide limit). Be a LOT fewer TN, AR, LA, AL, MO coming to MS for the Mar 15 opener.
I would take that mega as long as the limit stays 2.
kaizen leader
Well-Known Member
There is never a silver bullet. Especially when it comes to nature but let's see what happens. I hope it helps.
Good luck.
tellico4x4
Well-Known Member
Came up to camp last night so I could listen this morning in prep for Juvi hunt with grandson. Wouldn't you know it, at 5:30 a cloud of rain parked right over camp for 45 minutes... did finally hear 6-7 diff birds though
Davyalabama
Well-Known Member
This isn't the first time we have gone with just a few birds. One thing I've noticed is that there are considerably more turkey hunters now than in the 70's - early 2000's. We have fewer trappers and coon hunters today. You couple that with bag limits staying the same (Alabama,5), the use of decoys, hunters coming from other states, some areas allowing fall hunting and harvesting of hens, killing jakes, and a breed of hunter that will kill as many as they can, hahaha, shells that can reach out to them a country mile, you have a recipe for smaller numbers.
Personally, I don't like moving the season back to the 25th of March, we had strutting during the last part of deer season. Start the season March 15, shorten the season by a week or so, discontinue decoys (this isn't going to happen because of the almighty dollar from decoy manufacturers), stop all taking of hens for a while, and move the bag limit to 3, (we have far more deer and can only take 3 bucks). If it were my club, any gobbler with a beard under 6 inches would be off limits. Now, this is for Alabama, I don't know what you boys have up in Tn., y'all may need different rules.
My .01 on this.
Personally, I don't like moving the season back to the 25th of March, we had strutting during the last part of deer season. Start the season March 15, shorten the season by a week or so, discontinue decoys (this isn't going to happen because of the almighty dollar from decoy manufacturers), stop all taking of hens for a while, and move the bag limit to 3, (we have far more deer and can only take 3 bucks). If it were my club, any gobbler with a beard under 6 inches would be off limits. Now, this is for Alabama, I don't know what you boys have up in Tn., y'all may need different rules.
My .01 on this.
Well stated!
