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No decoys in AL first 10 days

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I think it's critical for at least one tom in an area to survive until after peak nest initiation (and peak nest initiation is about a week to 10 days after peak breeding). For the northern 2/3 of Alabama, peak nest initiation is probably around April 20th or so.

Will these new regulations ensure more toms survive till the second half of the season? Who knows. They make sense, but often things that make sense prove to not make a difference in the real world.

For example, some WMAs in MS remain closed to turkey hunting until April 1st (instead of Mar 15th for the rest of the state) as of 4 or 5 years ago or so. Most of those WMAs with a late season opening are areas with low population of birds, and the population has not rebounded in them. (But did the change keep them from complete eradication?... again who knows).

Personally, I would like to see opportunities added to the end of the season. Biologically, it doesn't matter if every single tom is killed AFTER majority of hens have started nesting (as long as jakes are protected to be able to service the jennies and renesting hens mid summer), and the jakes are allowed to become mature toms to service the adult hens the following spring. Nobody likes to turkey hunt when it's 90 degrees down south... but its still turkey hunting and still a ton of fun.
 
paboom said:
I would think the allowance of only 1 bird in the first 10 days will be advantageous as a lot of your average hunters give up after the first week or two.
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I think this will reduce the non-resident slaughter during the 1st 9 days of the season.

I wish Tennessee would do this as well.
 
A lot of AL turkey hunters cut their teeth hunting before decoys were legalized there, so it may not impact total kill numbers as much as it would elsewhere (although I think it HAS to save a lot of dominant field gobblers with flocks of hens). And decoys become somewhat less effective the later into the breeding cycle it gets. But I will still be really curious to see the reported kill totals the first few days with no decoys versus the first few days with decoys.
 
This should help the resource a little I think. Will the population rebound like crazy, doubt it...

Its bad for AL hunters with limited time and really bad for OOSers...

I imagine some folks turkey hunting getaways to AL have been cancelled...
 
As someone Who used to travel and hunt Bama at the start of their season simply reducing the limit to 1 will save a ton of turkeys from out of state hunters getting a jump on the season. The no decoys is a good first step towards outlawing them again as well. Bama had it right with decoys and changed, I see that coming back sometime
 
Rockhound said:
With regulation changes in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, you can expect Tennessee to get absolutely raped by nonresidents worse than it ever had before. May as well get used to it though, as they will never change regulations to discourage it.
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As recently as last year, some commissioners were actually proposing regulation changes that would ENCOURAGE it. E.g., allowing 2 turkeys per day. That proposal never took off, but I had a commissioner tell me point blank that he would never support a 2 bird limit because he felt it would reduce non-resident license sales. I countered that Missouri seems to sell a few licenses to out of staters, even with a 2 bird limit and no more than one in the first week. To no avail.
 
Southern Sportsman said:
As recently as last year, some commissioners were actually proposing regulation changes that would ENCOURAGE it. E.g., allowing 2 turkeys per day. That proposal never took off, but I had a commissioner tell me point blank that he would never support a 2 bird limit because he felt it would reduce non-resident license sales. I countered that Missouri seems to sell a few licenses to out of staters, even with a 2 bird limit and no more than one in the first week. To no avail.
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No one cared when the population ceased to exist in a matter of a yrlear in my county. I don't expect them to in any other county. The people making these decisions don't have to hunt anything that resembles public land so they don't give 2 yugos about the people who do.
 

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