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The case for banning the fan. Outdoor life

I am not a guy that fan/reaps since I mostly hunt public land and no way I would take that chance. But if the limit is 3 birds in Tennessee and someone reaps them in and kills 3 or you sit against a tree and call them in with a diaphragm and kill 3 it's the exact same. Hunting tactics change over time, and like I said I don't do it but once they start making a style illegal what's to say they won't change other laws. Why not make it a 2 bird limit and if you kill a bird you have to wait 10 days to check in another one. And hey if it's the end of the season get better at running, gunning and calling. I guess you just get one bird.
 
I think fanning is dangerous and would never advocate for someone to try it.

That being said, using decoys (thus killing adult gobblers) isn't the cause of the tremendous drop in poult survival which has a HUGE impact on turkey populations.
 
we have limits on turkeys, so what does it matter how you kill your limit so long as you dont go over it? if to many turkeys are being taken then lower the freaking limits?!? i think its just another excuse for the state agency to blame instead of their poor management practices? just my honest opinion, but there again i dont think too highly of the famous TWRA either, soooo?
 
kentuckylakebuck1 said:
we have limits on turkeys, so what does it matter how you kill your limit so long as you dont go over it? if to many turkeys are being taken then lower the freaking limits?!? i think its just another excuse for the state agency to blame instead of their poor management practices? just my honest opinion, but there again i dont think too highly of the famous TWRA either, soooo?
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This is very simple.It allows hunters to kill birds that normally would never been killed more than likely and at a time when they should be breeding.

If you believe that all the decoyed birds would've been killed with traditional tactics at the same time I've got some things to sell you.
 
Read the article, it explains why the method matters. Or at least a very logical and science backed reason why the method "seems" to matter in accordance to how the author interprets the reproductive physiology.
Turkey hunting is not catch and release, once a dominant breeder is dead he stays that way. So, by extending his life does it up the chances for hens to be consistently bred and more concentrate the peak nesting to help increase poult production, thus shortening the overall nesting season back to something that is more "normal"?

Does keeping this dominate male on the landscape for as many seasons as possible bring the nesting process back to more normal time frames, established by centuries of genetic evolution?

Assuming the science is accurate, the only debate over strutter decoys and fanning/reaping is "does it really increase the odds of dominate males to be killed and are there other methods that contribute to it?"
 
paboom said:
I think fanning is dangerous and would never advocate for someone to try it.

That being said, using decoys (thus killing adult gobblers) isn't the cause of the tremendous drop in poult survival which has a HUGE impact on turkey populations.
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Actually, poult survival isn't the biggest problem. it's actually why are so many hens not initiating nests AT ALL. THAT's the problem with such low poult/ hen numbers in August.

Now I don't claim that those taking the easy way out fanning/ reaping dominant birds early in the season before hens have been bred is the sole reason so many hens do not initiate nests. BUT, in areas with marginal populations, killing those toms (by any means... it's just a lot easier reaping them) before hens have been bred with no serviceable male to replace them is going to result in those local hens not initiating nests. Hens just aren't going to lay then set on infertile eggs. I don't know how hens know which eggs are fertile and which aren't, BUT THEY DO. Heck, the hens will even kick out infertile eggs out of the nest before or during incubation of remaining fertile eggs, and they know to kick out quitters during the incubation process as well. Amazing animals!
 
Rakkin6 said:
I am not a guy that fan/reaps since I mostly hunt public land and no way I would take that chance. But if the limit is 3 birds in Tennessee and someone reaps them in and kills 3 or you sit against a tree and call them in with a diaphragm and kill 3 it's the exact same. Hunting tactics change over time, and like I said I don't do it but once they start making a style illegal what's to say they won't change other laws. Why not make it a 2 bird limit and if you kill a bird you have to wait 10 days to check in another one. And hey if it's the end of the season get better at running, gunning and calling. I guess you just get one bird.
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Its not the exact same.. Read the article and what the biologist are saying..
 
I did and I still say drop the limit to 2 birds and you have to wait a certain amount of time between checking in their second gobbler. Want to improve the population guarantee this helps more than banning a hunting style. If people are willing to poach they will do it. People that actually care won't.
 
Rakkin6 said:
I did and I still say drop the limit to 2 birds and you have to wait a certain amount of time between checking in their second gobbler. Want to improve the population guarantee this helps more than banning a hunting style. If people are willing to poach they will do it. People that actually care won't.
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So your saying that strutter decoys and fanning/reaping doesn't make the dominate breeder easier to kill?

Honest question because the article is about a specific bird.
 
Setterman said:
Mega, nails it with hens not initiating nests. IMO and based on the cited research that seems to be crystal clear evidence of the issue regarding make decoys and taking the dominant bird.
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This is a fascinating aspect of their reproductive biology and social hierarchy. It's not that the hen can't pick another tom to breed with, it's that she WON'T...except on her own terms and in her own time.

Some of the chicken litter, egg bandit, fire ant, avian flu debates go right out the window when nest INITIATION becomes the focus. I never considered that these may indeed be perfectly healthy hens that aren't even trying to nest (once their chosen tom is taken out).
 
Good article with a few topics that are not often discussed. I'm torn between an overhaul of turkey hunting regulations like we have never seen and the decimation of the wild turkey to numbers we haven't seen in decades. I think it will take the latter to get back to the good old days.
 
Levee Jumper said:
Good article with a few topics that are not often discussed. I'm torn between an overhaul of turkey hunting regulations like we have never seen and the decimation of the wild turkey to numbers we haven't seen in decades. I think it will take the latter to get back to the good old days.
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Unfortunately you are right. There's way too many turkey killers now versus turkey hunters. The killers absolutely refuse to admit or even listen that things they're doing are potentially detrimental to the future. There's no chance they'd shelve the tactics they employ even if they kill the very last bird around

The turkey hunters on the other hand would hunt them bare handed if that's what it took to continue to hunt but also make Sure the future looked bright.

its very sad how backwards many think and how much they ignore all the signs of what's happening
 
AT Hiker said:
So your saying that strutter decoys and fanning/reaping doesn't make the dominate breeder easier to kill?

Honest question because the article is about a specific bird.
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Oh I don't doubt it does make it easier, does hunting from a comfortable treestand make it easier to kill the buck you wanna kill? How's about we get rid of all guns for deer and make it bow only. I mean shooting a deer at 500 yards with a 30-06 and a $1,0000 Zeiss scope is unfair.

No doubt decoys give the hunter an advantage at times but at times it doesn't. Kentucky which produces tons of nice deer every year allows baiting, North Carolina allows running deer with dogs. So are they wrong since we don't allow it in Tennessee?
 
Rakkin6 said:
Oh I don't doubt it does make it easier, does hunting from a comfortable treestand make it easier to kill the buck you wanna kill? How's about we get rid of all guns for deer and make it bow only. I mean shooting a deer at 500 yards with a 30-06 and a $1,0000 Zeiss scope is unfair.

No doubt decoys give the hunter an advantage at times but at times it doesn't. Kentucky which produces tons of nice deer every year allows baiting, North Carolina allows running deer with dogs. So are they wrong since we don't allow it in Tennessee?
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Deer are completely irrelevant in this or any discussion about turkeys
 
paboom said:
I think fanning is dangerous and would never advocate for someone to try it.

That being said, using decoys (thus killing adult gobblers) isn't the cause of the tremendous drop in poult survival which has a HUGE impact on turkey populations.
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Its one of the causes...
 
concentrate the peak nesting
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Nail on the head right here.. I am not a big fan of over regulation but but I believe from what we have seen from TWRA that changes are coming... I would much rather see them ban fanning than reducing days or limits.. Honestly I don't think just banning the fan will have much benefit but if they were to ban all male decoys it would make a difference. One thing I have noticed in the unpressured flocks that I observe is that they have been done breeding for about 3 weeks now. There are still plenty of predators but it will create predator swamping when they all hatch soon at almost the same time... Bottom line the nesting process in wild highly pressured flocks is taking too long..
 
"Predator Swamping" is real. But at the same time it's good to have a trickle effect of nest. That way if a detrimental weather occurrence happens it doesn't wipe them all out.

2010??? Was that the Nashville flood in May? Didn't just flood the city, flooded a lot of central Tennessee and killed lots of hens and poults.
 

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