Soft Talker
Well-Known Member
Pretty obvious you must not be much of a "Gladesman" to make an ignorant statement like that.LBL would probably still be a go to place if there werent 9 million hogs destroying the woods.
Pretty obvious you must not be much of a "Gladesman" to make an ignorant statement like that.LBL would probably still be a go to place if there werent 9 million hogs destroying the woods.
Calling yourself a soft talker is fairly bigger stretchPretty obvious you must not be much of a "Gladesman" to make an ignorant statement like that.
Then go sit in the woods scouting the first 2 weeks of April so you don't miss out on seeing the woods progress.These new dates are ridiculous, and based off horsesh#t theories. This is not Maine, nor is it Mississippi. Season was set up fine the way the original "biologists" planned it. Majority of adult Hens are bred, for the first time, well before the first weekend in April, all across the state of Tn, including the mountains. Part of the experience for me, like others have stated, is seeing the woods progress into Spring as I hunt each week. I will admit, I enjoy hunting till the end of May, but would be fine if it went back to the original season structure. Gobblers that have survived thru the second weekend in May, here in the mid South, deserve the rest of late Spring, into early Summer, to continue the breeding of unbred, willing Hens without disturbance.
I sure wished I had the resources and time to flood my local wma that i turkey hunt with hundreds of dog proof traps. I've taken a good bit around my house but no where near enough.Doesn't make a difference for me as to the start date. Just get out there and kill nest predators. Took out over 120 coons and lost count of possums over 70 . Kill em all
Biggest thing you're missing is how much worse things could be if LBL had not had a delayed opening for turkey season.If the Chamberlain theory was true LBL which has been delayed since the 80s here in TN would need turkey crossing signs every mile or so, and Arkansas would be the leading turkey destination in the country. Lol
My thoughts as well.I really liked the later date last year. It gives a few more early April days just to think about fishing instead of both turkey hunting and fishing.
Be a cold day in hell before you find me "sitting" in the woods, first 2 weeks of April, without a shotgun in my hand. I'm a Turkey Hunter, not watcher.Then go sit in the woods scouting the first 2 weeks of April so you don't miss out on seeing the woods progress.
Now I full agree male carryover is critical. But not for improved hunting opportunity the following season, but rather to ensure males are available to breed jennies and renesting hens in June and July. No males in June and July... no fertilized eggs. So IF we are killing too many males (and I'm not saying we are in most locales... we definitely are in others), the simple solution would be to outlaw the killing of jakes. That almost makes up for all the birds killed in the entire month of May!
I guess my point is you are all about hunter opportunity. How do you increase availability without harming the resource? I would argue that all the harming of the resource occurs in the first 16 days of the season, regardless of what those dates are. And based on nest initiation data (which is becoming exhaustive), full correlation in TN is showing that average peak nest initiation doesn't even occur until the last week of April. Knowing that hens initially mate 7 to 10 days prior to initiating nests, and mate repeatedly throughout the breeding season if males are available, it just makes sense that removal of males prior to breeding has the potential to be counterproductive.
The delay in the season opening last year certainly didn't decrease hunter success (which actually increased from years prior, despite decreasing from a 3 bird to 2 bird limit!!!!!). Has it been proven yet to improve poult recruitment? Too early to say... maybe just a coincidence TN had one of it's best hatches in decades last year. But if it DOESNT hurt hunting, and might help nesting success... why not leave it as is???
A quick lit review shows numbers of ~90% initiation in one study. 83% in the big TN study.what is the average percentage of GPS tracked hens not initiating nests at all?
Yes.Does this data account for late nesters and renests?
Were these studies performed where ideal flocks existed under ideal circumstances?
What were percentages of total nests were nests initiated at the appointed time vs all others?
That is starting to show up more in the data. If you got a good momma, she needs protected at all costs!As well some mothers are simply better at their jobs than others.
Agreed 100% on the sentence.Not being a pain here but most studies are performed where the most data can be gained for the least investment of time and money. Ideal circumstances for a study produces data about ideal circumstances. Overall flawed data.
"Exhaustive nest initiation data" would not be exhaustive if it were gathered under the worst circumstances available.
Yes poult survival is critical but does not supersede nest success. Nests fall to the same causes that poults do.
100% truth!Compromise and changes from hunters whining is exactly what got us into the situation we're in to begin with.
Those of you who love Mississippi, the season structure, and their turkey coordinator should go hunt Mississippi.
As far as killing "all the gobblers". There is a lot of great recent banding data out there and band return rates are much lower than you'd expect. Now hunters could kill banded birds and not call it in, but I'd like to think most hunters would be calling that band in. In one of the most comprehensive studies, annual turkey season survival for adult gobblers was over 40% with a sample size of over 500 gobblers spread across the southeast. Some of these birds residing on HEAVILY hunted public lands.
Your south MS location in the piney woods, where I've lived and hunted myself, is a minority in the fact that I do agree that most adult gobblers could be taken off some tracts due to the thick woods, crap habitat (corresponding with poor turkey numbers), number of outlaw turkey hunters (hunting before season, bag limit, baiting, etc.). When you have just a couple adult gobblers on a 1,000 acres of pine/yaupon and they are hitting a food plot hard early season, yeah you may could do some damage especially if the next nearest adult gobbler is a couple miles away. But in areas of good habitat and decent turkey numbers, i believe you are grossly over-exaggerating the percent of the adult gobbler population that is killed.
I am about preserving hunting opportunity based on the science. If we ever start getting hard evidence that we are shooting ourselves in the foot and HUNTING is part of the reason for the wild turkey decline, I'll fully support any change necessary. But if hunting is the problem, we have much bigger issues. That'd look real good from the anti-hunter's perspective "TURKEY HUNTERS ARE THE REASON TURKEYS HAVE DECLINED!" Think about that a minute. Ouch.
Of course the delay didn't decrease success. Why would it? The season opened when way more birds were suicidal and ready to die. The decrease in bag limit could also help to increase success, as once hunters got #2 they were out of the woods and it left more birds for the remaining hunters.
TN had a nice bump in reproduction in 2021 and 2022. Before any changes were made. Arkansas first made changes over a decade ago without any improvement in reproduction. They finally saw some recent improvement when virtually every other state around thnr did as well (even including those states that open "too early".)
Decoys have killed way more birds then upgraded chokes and shot has ever thought of. Cawling behind a decoy in a 50 acre field doesn't have anything to do with chokes and shells. I know of people that don't even take a call with them much less know of to use them.could much better shotshells/chokes be killing turkeys that used to not be in range? folks keep telling me "it will kill birds out to 50-60 yards..." that's near double the distance most birds used to be shot at...i shoot 5s or 6s in my ten gauge, but have shot nearly all of my birds at twenty-five yards or less, sometimes much less. i just wanted a denser pattern...
A major something. We had a farm in giles County that went to a good place to turkeys to absolutely no turkeys anywhere around within miles within just a couple years. Our place on Hickman maury line is in the middle of the samething happening. Went from one of a heck of a place to turkey hunt to not turkey hunting it at all for 3 year this year the 4th to try to save the few turkeys we have on it.Yep all this talk kind of goes out the window when we look about what happened in southern middle counties... There is something else there...
To simplify this;Not quite clear on this question.
This is known to me as well, not from research data but from observations and logical deduction.Another factor I haven't saw mentioned yet that is showing up more in the data is hen survival AFTER the nest hatches. Some studies are finding rather alarming rates of hen mortality after she successfully hatches her brood
Expand on this.So its safe to say as high as 20% of hens aren't initiating nests some years, which will fluctuate according to the number of juvenille hens in the population
That is only the case in areas that have lots of fields.Decoys have killed way more birds then upgraded chokes and shot has ever thought of. Cawling behind a decoy in a 50 acre field doesn't have anything to do with chokes and shells. I know of people that don't even take a call with them much less know of to use them.