Turkey Limits

[poorhunter]

I don't think Jake or fall harvest make a big dent, but I'd be in favor of no jakes and a one or two bird limit in the fall.

 

[callemquacktn]

Dang, we going over this same spill again this season? Lol
Someone ought to just pull up the old post from last season. Those were some heated discussions. Lol
This yr has been a repeat of last yr with alot of gobbling but even more of a increase in male birds.
I could have limited out in the first 4 hunts if I wanted too. No decoys or crawling.
Woodman10 has hit the nail on the head I believe.
Strutting decoys and pop up blinds have caused the most damage to the states turkey population. That and the fact that so many hunters don't care to restrict themselves to killing only a bird or 2 from an area and moving on.

 

[callemquacktn]

I tried to Google when did pretty boy decoy come out and the earliest mention I could find was 2006 but I'm almost positive it was 2005.

 

[PickettSFHunter]

I hunted the KY line every day for 4 days last week. Literally right on the line, and it was sad. I heard 1-3 birds every morning on the TN side and 10-15 on the KY side. Same habitat just different regulations.


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[deerchaser007]

LBLman, I checked my notes. I have been keeping notes of the seasons since 2002. The last year I noted a year with this late of a break, in my area, was 2005. I was on the road as a musician that year, and used my brother as my eyes the opening weekend. When I returned late week of opener and the following week, the break still had not occurred. I also noted in 2011 that year was a less than 50% break, in my area. Tom groups still had greater than 50% of its total members by opener, and dominance still be established. So, in my area, the last year I seen a break this late was 2005. Where no break had occurred, and no dominance established in the Tom groups.
Yes, I'm a geek! I find this fun and interesting
Now, keep in mind, what I experience in my area, you may not in Stewart county. We are not talking total devastation across the whole state in one year. But, you can have small significant impacts on individual populations spread across the state. Thus leading to very low, unstable populations that can be hard bring back. This is the very way the wild turkey almost went away the first time, and had to be restocked. Slowly, over areas over a matter of years. The key is not look at one specific county, but watch how other counties drop, then it spreads to the next county, then the next county, then the next county. This is because turkey are not having enough successful poult production to reach peak habitat in a certain area, and expanding outward into those areas that have been devastated by over harvest. Hunters will adapt, they will kill out a area, then move to another when no birds are left. In hopes that population will rebound in a couple years. Most are finding out this is not happening, once it to late. But again, it's happening slowly, and this year could answer ALOT of our questions.

BTW, anyone who made it this far thru my post is alittle intrigued by managing our turkey populations. TWRA is looking to do a 5 year study with UT on the declining turkey populations. I think we should all email our TWRC folks and tell them we are in full support of this study. Is it 5 years to late, yes, but at least they have noticed what some of noticed several years ago.

 

[deerchaser007]

LBLman, in my research I had to pinpoint a year to go off of. After researching the harvest data back, I pinpointed 2004 as that point. Then went looking for turning points before and after. This Archived article was full of info that I found VERY useful. I'm trying to do by phone, hope it works bringing up link.

http://www.gameandfishmag.com/hunting/h ... aa035004a/

 

[FARMTOFIELD]

Dang, we going over this same spill again this season? Lol
Someone ought to just pull up the old post from last season. Those were some heated discussions. Lol
This yr has been a repeat of last yr with alot of gobbling but even more of a increase in male birds.
I could have limited out in the first 4 hunts if I wanted too. No decoys or crawling.
Woodman10 has hit the nail on the head I believe.
Strutting decoys and pop up blinds have caused the most damage to the states turkey population. That and the fact that so many hunters don't care to restrict themselves to killing only a bird or 2 from an area and moving on.

If you need help let me know, cause they ain't no gobbling going on for me this year lol

 

[scn]

The state to our north kills the same numbers of birds we do with half the limit and half the season we have

Tn imo cannot sustain a 4 bird limit with a fall season and by allowing jakes to be killed. End fall hunting and outlaw jake killing. Then you might can keep the limit which shouldnt have been raised

x2

 

[Roost 1]

Once again I'll disagree on this point.. I have hunted KY and TN for years and I'll say it again TN has more birds than KY.. Which is why your bag limit is twice that of ours.... I'd much rather hunt TN than KY. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

 

[Doskil]

If Alabama is flush with birds, why do they not allow the taking of hens?

 

[MidTennFisher]

I don't think Jake or fall harvest make a big dent, but I'd be in favor of no jakes and a one or two bird limit in the fall.

The Fall harvest has to make quite a dent because people are killing hens and lots of them.

I did a quick check of the 2015 harvest for the month of October. Statewide 1609 turkeys killed, 1045 of those were hens. In 2014 Fall season 1522 turkeys killed, 1009 of them were hens.

Dead hens can't produce any babies. With the recent decline in quality of turkey hunting, especially on public lands, I can't believe so many hens are being killed. I can see wanting to blast maybe one hen in the Fall to use as a Thanksgiving bird, but having a limit of 6 birds in my county of either sex is ridiculous. Even if they wanted to keep it at 6 birds, it should be one hen max. If we had constantly rising populations of birds I wouldn't have a problem with killing hens but that isn't the case. We aren't going to restore the population by continuing this.

 

[deerchaser007]

The state to our north kills the same numbers of birds we do with half the limit and half the season we have

Tn imo cannot sustain a 4 bird limit with a fall season and by allowing jakes to be killed. End fall hunting and outlaw jake killing. Then you might can keep the limit which shouldnt have been raised

I will not comment on Kentucky. But I will comment on the fall turkey hunting. NWTF and every turkey biologist will conclude fact is that if a state is gonna allow fall hunting that it is impairative that it is based off solid brood surveys to not hurt the population. Considering TN has not met the standard 2.7 poult per hen in 12 years, and some years no brood surveys were done at all, I feel TRWA has made a huge mistake with our turkey management.

 

[MidTennFisher]

The state to our north kills the same numbers of birds we do with half the limit and half the season we have

Tn imo cannot sustain a 4 bird limit with a fall season and by allowing jakes to be killed. End fall hunting and outlaw jake killing. Then you might can keep the limit which shouldnt have been raised

I feel TRWA has made a huge mistake with our turkey management.

A lot of people thought this last year, I remember quite a debate being fired up about this and I also remember some members of this forum speaking out at a hearing trying to get TWRA to remove the Fall season or at least reduce the bag limit for Spring season and they didn't budge. The conclusion by many was that TWRA cares more about license sales than managing our wildlife populations.

I'm not going to say I agree or disagree but as far as the license sales so, they are in a tough spot. They get no state funding so if they don't sell licenses, they can't pay staff to manage our woods. After several years of declining sales, we may be faced with a lack of funds resulting in having to sell of our public lands and nobody wants that.

 

[Setterman]

There's no doubt that the decoy fad, fanning, blinds etc have had a bigger impact then any type of weather, jake killing or fall season.

Eliminate decoys, fanning, and blinds and the gobbler population will explode

 

[TheLBLman]

Eliminate decoys, fanning, and blinds and the gobbler population will explode

I do not disagree with this, and personally, don't have a problem with it. Although I do believe not allowing some novices the opportunity to learn the pros & cons of using blinds and decoys would mainly be for the purpose of the more accomplished turkey hunters to be able to continue killing their 4 birds each spring.

But believe similar results could be accomplished simply by going back to a 2-bird limit.
Reason I say that is because I believe the more accomplished turkey hunters kill a much higher percentage of each year's harvests (and typically limit out with their 4 birds) than all those other less accomplished hunters who rely more on decoys and blinds.

Additionally, there is also a growing issue of many turkey hunters simply not being able, or simply not having properties large enough for the more traditional styles of turkey hunting you and I might most enjoy. It may very well be now that most TN turkey hunters are doing their turkey hunting on tracts of less than 50 acres, whereby blinds can make their hunting simply a more practical method of not disturbing or running off the birds they're hunting. The decoys can be as counter-productive as productive, but why not let them figure that out?

How many turkey hunters even kill 1 turkey annually? It's an incredibly low percentage.
Yet, many do annually limit out with 4 birds, or hold back with 3 just so they can keep hunting with the retained option to kill one more. Make the spring limit 2 birds, with no other changes, and I believe in a couple years we'd begin to start seeing, and hearing, a lot more longbeards, and find more "enjoyment" in our turkey hunting. It would just happen a tad faster if we entirely eliminated the fall turkey hunting, which I believe could be done with less opposition than trying to outlaw decoys and blinds. Perhaps "fanning" should be disallowed for safety concerns.

 

[Mike Belt]

My take, and I haven't turkey hunted in several years. In the areas I hunted...Shelby, Fayette, and Hardeman Counties....

When I turkey hunted I always saw and heard birds and huge winter flocks of birds. This was prior to the 4 bird limit and Fall turkey season. I had the same mentality towards turkeys as I did deer in that I never shot jakes and they always got a pass; even if it meant not killing a bird during the season. I usually saw more birds in the winter than spring until our nesting areas were improved and then the birds stayed closer to home year round. Some years nesting production was higher than others particularly in flood prone years in bottomlands. Overall, things went well until they upped the limit and started the Fall seasons. I couldn't then and I still can't understand the reasoning behind allowing hens to be killed suppressing poult production and at the same time increasing the number of gobblers allowed, especially considering when and how spring nesting was so sketchy. Numbers started their downward spiral from that point. I don't think fanning and the use of decoys has contributed to that decline. The limits and killing off of the hens has.

 

[AXL78]

I agree with you guys. It would help to lower the limits, restrict jakes, and I really don't see a point in a fall season. It is just opportunistic killing. I don't know if should be outlawed completely, but the limits are a little absurd in some areas. I think feeding turkeys during season should be outlawed. I don't know what the right approach is, but some measure should be taken. I have one place I hunt that is about 80 acres, it adjoins a few other tracts of land and is a fairly large area that historically has supported a healthy turkey population. It is pretty developed around these areas now. Someone legally feeds in a spot at the end of a road across a street from the "block of turkey woods/habitat." The turkeys basically cross one road at a creek bed to get down the road to the other spot where there is feed. Someone owns a very small acreage at this point/crossing and all the gobblers are shot at this crossing. In this large block at this point I think we are down to a couple of gobblers now. Doesn't matter how much pressure is put on this crossing, they are going to use it to get to the feed area where the hens go and get shot. The hunters are not doing anything illegal, but they are overshooting an entire area on a few acres. It's pretty selfish and opportunistic. The person feeding I guess isn't doing anything wrong either. The people who own or have permission to hunt the area where the turkeys are, or should be, are basically getting the raw end of the deal. Only option is to bait your place and then not hunt, or the other option is to ruin it by starting to blast jakes. I know this situation is unique, but I would imagine feed causes other problems as well.

 

[TheLBLman]

I know this situation is unique . . . .

Actually, I believe your "situation" is more common than you think, and is only going to increase in the future.
It may be that the best thing we have going for us (in situations such as you described) is that turkeys do move around over a much larger area than many hunters seem to think, especially over the course of weeks, months, and a year. Any void that occurs CAN be filled, often in a matter of a week or month, if not the coming year. Any turkeys that stumble into better habitat, better food supply, better nesting, etc., are inclined to fill that void. Just might be next March before it happens in many situations, next week in others.

To an extent maybe greater than many are thinking, what happens in a small spot CAN be effected (over the course of a year or less) more by the turkey population in the surrounding areas (say 2 to 5 miles in every direction, so we're talking over thousands of acres).

 

[callemquacktn]

There's no doubt that the decoy fad, fanning, blinds etc have had a bigger impact then any type of weather, jake killing or fall season.

Eliminate decoys, fanning, and blinds and the gobbler population will explode

Agree. If they did this I know guys that would stop hunting tomorrow.

 

[TheLBLman]

If they did this I know guys that would stop hunting tomorrow.

No doubt, some would stop turkey hunting.

But my thoughts are it would ultimate make little difference for two reasons:

1) More would simply continue to hunt and still kill turkeys, than quit because they can't use a blind or a decoy.

2) Those currently killing most of the turkeys annually would still continue to kill most of the turkeys annually, and should there be many turkeys "saved" by outlawing decoys and blinds, these more accomplished turkey hunters would ultimately just kill most of those as well.

IMO, the only "practical" solution is a lower turkey limit (combined with the elimination of fall turkey hunting).

We could very "practically" add to this making jakes illegal, but I know in many areas, the problem has little to do with too many jakes being killed, nor does it have much to do with fall hunting. In other areas, these are huge factors.