Outlaw decoys

[Layne]

Turkeys are very predictable, mature deer are not.

turkeys sleep and eat when I do, mature deer not so much... wait, I work nights, scratch that.

as for outlawing decoys, not going to happen, it is naive to think that Joe hunter and his buddies have as much influence as the outdoor industry does.
State agencies are trying to figure out how to get more hunters into the woods, not discourage the ones they already have. While I believe decoys do contribute to more turkeys being killed they also keep many hunters hunting because they provide them with success and lets face it, if todays hunters don't have success they quickly grow bored and move on to something else. Hunters provide the majority of funding for state wildlife agencies and with the large drop in hunter numbers over the past couple decades that funding is shrinking while cost rise. Once the baby boomers have hung up their guns for good it could be devastating for wildlife agencies and hunters alike...
So, with all that said, I think like it or not we need more hunters and these gadgets help recruit and keep younger hunters in the woods as our country becomes more and more urbanized ( I think that's a word)...
I don't believe state wildlife agencies are going to do anything that will have a negative affect on the number of hunters that are buying licenses and I don't believe putting restrictions on these gadgets is going to bring in more hunters.

Disclaimer: for the record I haven't used decoys in many years, mainly because I can't sit still long enough in the woods or on a field and am too lazy to carry them around. I make my own calls so trying to call the bird in is my enjoyment, win or lose... mostly lose.

 

[PalsPal]

I don't believe state wildlife agencies are going to do anything that will have a negative affect on the number of hunters that are buying licenses and I don't believe putting restrictions on these gadgets is going to bring in more hunters.
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Spot on, and what I've said from the beginning. Btw, I'm glad this was the last post, because there was no way I was reading any further back to read the whining !

 

[NumberOne]

Would some of you veteran turkey hunters consider killing a bird over a decoy to be the equivalent of killing a big buck in a food plot? Or on a low-pressure farm? It seems there are different degrees and level of difficulties of hunting across the state and from property to property. The man who kills a 120" mountain deer gets no where near the credit of the man who kills the 150" in a food plot. Who do you think hunted harder?

You can't compare deer to turkeys. Except the onslaught of tent hunters are deer hunters that do turkeys as a hobby,

I can add that there's more really big deer in these mountains than in most places, and they're not that hard to kill. Deer hunting is primarily an ambush sport, and most wont admit it, but it's largely luck.ive killed a pile of giant deer and feel luck played a role in most of them

Killing a mature buck and killing a turkey aren't even on the same page of difficulty. We know turkeys are gonna be on the ground and moving during the day. The same can't be said of a mature buck. I do both and love both, but killing a mature deer is harder. I don't use decoys either because I hunt woods. They don't like decoys in the woods from my experience.

 

[megalomaniac]

I haven't made any comments on this thread, because I really don't give a flip one way or the other. But I will say this, the goal behind most turkey hunters drive to go morning after morning is to kill the bird, not to play the game. I haven't met many people that call/ work in birds to shotgun range that choose to pass them because they are 2 y/os. That being said, it really doesn't matter if adult birds are killed as long as all the hens are bred. The biggest problem with decoys is not their effectiveness (and they ARE insanely effective), the biggest problem is that they result in the deaths of way too many turkeys too early in the season BEFORE the majority of hens are bred. And that's on TWRA, not the decoys.