The comments on the changes Oklahoma got me to thinking about how folks feel about bag limits in general. The OK regulation that establishes a one-bird-per-county spring limit (3 total per season) seems like a reasonable idea. This allows hunting opportunity while spreading out hunting pressure. It also, in effect, eliminates hunters shooting multiple birds at one time, which has always been a pet peeve of mine.
I have never been able to understand why anyone would want to use up multiple tags in one set-up by shooting more than one if multiple gobblers came in. To me, that is just a waste of a precious resource, as well as the loss of a future hunting opportunity. For years I/we lobbied for a two-bird spring limit in New Mexico and it took years to get it. As part of that struggle, I/we also wanted a one-bird-a-day limit as well. Never got that one,...and every time I hear somebody say "I called two gobblers in and shot them both" I just grit my teeth. Here's an idea: if you need more turkey meat, shoot one bird at a time,...and then go buy the second one at your grocery store!
Take Texas as a great example,...a four-bird limit and you can just mow 'em down if you want. What a waste of our wild turkey resource in allowing that,...and to add insult to injury, you can shoot them over bait! Having hunted TX a few times, I can tell you it ain't no big deal to be able to shoot 2,3, or even 4 birds in a single set-up. I have watched groups of gobblers walk off without firing a shot because I knew I would kill two or more gobblers if I did. Why do that?!
Turkey hunting is not about a body count, folks. It is about the hunting experience! Wherever you hunt, and especially in places where turkey populations are struggling, use a little restraint and protect the resource!
...At least that's the view from here... :)
If present trends across the country continue and spillover in the west, where it's almost all public land, I won't be surprised if you get your wish for 1 gobbler per year. And then what do you do after that if numbers of turkey hunters continue to increase, turkey populations decline, and hunting lands are lost? How do you divvy it up then? Make it residents only? Short seasons? Limit gear? Make it all drawing? Get to hunt only every other year? That day is coming...
I think one thing you do is self impose bag limits. If the state allows four birds but I know that the area I hunt can't support that given the pressure and population then I don't kill four birds. Same thing happens with deer for me. North Carolina allows four does and two bucks but in the area I live in where deer are just starting to rebound in population I could not in good conscience take six deer out of that population. If everyone killed their six our population would disappear in a season. So what I'm getting at is that when what you're seeing in the woods where you live and hunt isn't matching up to the state limits then I think for me I feel an obligation to self impose the limit that I think is more sustainable. And some years that may very well be none. Given the past four years of spring flooding here in the mountains our turkeys are at a low I haven't seen in decades. For me my value of the resource outweighs my desire to take. But that's a personal choice.
Quote from: GobbleNut on June 20, 2020, 09:25:38 AM
Turkey hunting is not about a body count, folks. It is about the hunting experience! Wherever you hunt, and especially in places where turkey populations are struggling, use a little restraint and protect the resource!
Yea but then you wouldn't have the hero pics for Facebook and the "look what I did, season recap, we went to such and such " posts on every single hunting forum. What I really enjoy is when the same person posts the same story on the only two turkey hunting forums lol. It's the same people on both forums how much attention do you need ?
I believe in self imposing limits. I know my rule is never take more than one bird out of an area. Been working good for me, it allows area to have gobblers each year to enjoy. If you take more than one gobbler, spread out your Hunting range. It will and does pay off. It is possible to "shoot out" an area if your not careful. Be safe....
I know my state has a 1 bird limit. It does suck to only be able to get 1, but it keeps the hunting great and the bird population really good.
If that's the price to pay for a healthy bird population and great hunting, I'll take it.
I do agree that some states definitely are to lax with bag limits.
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Where I hunt it is a 2 bird limit for spring, which is about right. It used to be 4 birds and they dropped it down to 2 about 4 years ago now. Has far has deer go we have an overabundance here and are allowed 3 does a day. They way I self impose is never kill more than me and my wife can eat from the end of the season to the begining of the following season. I may kill a couple extra and give to Hunters for the Hungry foundation for needy soldiers and families on Fort Campbell and in Clarksville.
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Good morals, great cause....wish everyone practiced that.
in the state of Georgia it is three toms per season. My preference would for it to be just two like it was when I first started hunting them back in the 70's
How about limited hen harvesting or stopping that all together. I don't like hens being harvested period
Quote from: bigbird on June 20, 2020, 03:04:27 PM
How about limited hen harvesting or stopping that all together. I don't like hens being harvested period
I could not agree with you more, killing a hen is killing the future of the sport.
X2, no hen harvesting.....
I wish both Alabama (5) and Georgia (3) would reduce their limits. In Georgia you can kill all three with one shot, which some people think is a big accomplishment, big whoop!!! I'm all for filling tags (body count is a byproduct of that), I'm not much on the look at me photo ops, I do share with a few friends via texts. I won't shoot more than one on a hunt, I won't even double with someone else. One hunt, one bird at the most. I county hop to avoid taking multiple birds from a general area. If AL/Ga would reduce the limits it would save me a lot of driving and allow me to sleep a little more in the spring and give me more time to make fun of Gobblenut.
Me, I just sit and think about what the idiots who just had to introduce others to take up the sport are thinking now.
Plain and simple, we are killing too many turkeys.
I would personally like to see each state that allows multiple birds to be harvested in 1 day to suspend those regulations. I would LOVE to see all states change their non-resident tag allowance to 1 per hunter.
I go hunting to hear turkeys gobble. Quality hunts with plenty of birds heard will always trump hunts where I only heard one and killed one.
I love killing turkeys as much as anyone but we need to start encouraging state agencies to act in the best interest of the birds and the best interest of the birds is fewer being killed with higher annual carryover.
I hunt on federal land here in Tennessee(Fort Campbell Army Base) being a retiree from the Army. We are only allowed 2 birds a year on the base and only 1 per day. These are bonus birds and don't count toward your Tennessee or Kentucky limit. Tennessee just dropped it's limit from 4 birds to 3 and only 1 per day. If I am not mistaken Tennessee has always been 1 per day or at least since I started turkey hunting.
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I agree with reducing limits and only 1 bird a day but the game and fish people also need to figure out what is causing population decline in nature other than predators.
You are correct Tennessee is only 1 bird per day
Quote from: slicksbeagles1 on June 20, 2020, 08:58:33 PM
I agree with reducing limits and only 1 bird a day but the game and fish people also need to figure out what is causing population decline in nature other than predators.
I think they have a good grasp on causation of decline, and a piss poor understanding of overall population numbers balanced against increasing pressure. I posted this podcast link in another thread awhile ago, but I think Mike Chamberlain does a great job of talking about these issues. He's a biologist and researcher at Univ. of Georgia, but above all else he's a turkey nut like us: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hunting-public/id1124616529?i=1000473597465&fbclid=IwAR2TfSVI2R5ShKM301QxqSrCE3sZjLmua7zSoYSZFAwb9Y_OX16-VFmLER0
As an Okie I've been killing my three birds per year for years but for the last few years I've went to a self imposed one per county limit. Now everyone has to follow suit...I'm such a trend setter.
I live in a state where it's one per day on harvest. First time I was in a state that allowed multiple in one day I forgot to kill the other one flogging my bird. Since then I have killed 3 in one set up and after doing that a few times and having to pack out that much weight for quite a distance. I choose to never shoot more than 2 in one sitting because it is just too much to carry out. I have been with a buddy where we killed 4 in one morning by 8AM. Two on first set up and one each on 2 different set ups. Was a wild morning with lightning and birds in just the right mood. In my opinion what does it matter as long as we don't go over the total limit. Less days afield is less disturbance for nesting hens.
I don't think there is an answer that universally works. Each state and area needs to be looked at individually. Still the general principles do apply. My personal opinion does agree with most tings said. We have not seen the big decline in my area, but it has leveled off from the big saturation after reintroduction. Some people complain that there are less turkeys, but I have kept a pretty close eye on it and I agree there is less than there was at one time, but it has been basically unchanged for the last 15 years, allowing for year to year fluctuations. Our habitat is stable and holding what it should.
I am lucky I have a situation where I have a lot of control over a big chunk of land (~1200 acres ). I keep track of the birds on it and control how many are taken as best I can. I set a self imposed limit of 1/3 of the gobblers I have accounted for to be harvested. Now we also fall hunt this and the gobbler limit is carried over from spring, if the limit was killed in spring then no mature gobblers are shot in the fall. I only allow hens and poults and that has a limit. The turkey population has been very stable on this land for many years, actually decades. I won't even take multiple birds off the same group or ridge. I spread the kill over the whole farm. This year I accounted for 10 mature gobblers and 11 jakes on this farm and we killed 3 longbeards and one jake. It works for me, I have good hunting every year and plenty of turkeys.
Thanks for sharing ChesterCopperpot very interesting interview it answers some of my questions
Louisiana has a 1 per day 2 per season limit but allow Jakes to be killed. Very very few La hunters kill 2 but even fewer let Jakes go. This season alone the harvest total was up a few hundred and most of them were Jakes. Finally had a few survive hatching and they shoot em. I never kill two Gobblers in the same area and a lot of years I stop at one. Depends on how many I can find while scouting. Our problems aren't hunters killing too many but I wish they would outlaw the Jake killing except maybe for youth hunters.
The only reason Mississippi has any carry over annually is because of the no Jake law .
With the pressure we get .
I wish all states would install this law .
I think the bag limits have a relatively minimal effect unless you go down to one or two turkey and here's why I say that. Here in Alabama, MOST of the guys I know that hunt only take one MAYBE two birds per season anyway. Very few (of the guys I know anyway) shoot their 3rd or 4th or 5th bird. Thats just a general observation and there are obviously exceptions. *Edited for clarity- I would be completely ok if we went to a two bird limit, I just don't think it would have all that dramatic of an effect since most guys (your average joe hunter) aren't shooting more than two anyway, regardless of bag limit.
What I DO think would help a lot of the southern (specifically South East) states is to move the opener back a week or two. Give the birds a couple more weeks of breeding without being disturbed and thinned out. In our area anyway, the first two-three weeks of the season are the most pressured and that also lines up with the prime breeding weeks.
I also think that we would be wise to ban hen harvest (bearded or otherwise) regardless of it being spring or fall season. A hen is a hen regardless of beard and whether or not it's fall or spring. We need all the hens we can retain for breeding and reproduction.
I also agree with others about banning jakes. Let them grow up and get in the breeding population
I hear what you guys are saying. It would seem to me to figure out the cause of the decline rather than continually lowering limits. Do you think the decline is caused by:
- Increased pressure
- Decrease in non-developed land
- Poor habitat
- Predation (coons, snakes, coyotes, etc)
In SC where I hunt, (home of the NWTF) the management is non-existent on the WMA's. Weve had a17 yconsecutive year decline, with no idea why. South Carolina pays people to manage this and there are no efforts to increase habitat or plant food plots at least on the two WMA's I hunt. So my question being if just continuing to lower the bag limit is all that is ever done there is no indication that will yield higher numbers of turkeys or even slow the decline. If we do not know what had caused the decline, limiting bag limits may be a short term fix but there is no reason to believe it will be a long term solution.
Need to remember that cutting the bag limit in half won't save half the gobblers. It will spare some, but on hard-hunted areas most will be killed by someone else. That's not all bad, however, it's probably not the solution most of us think it is.
If you can believe the figures the states put out, there's not a single state that averages even one gobbler per hunter. In most all of them, most hunters don't kill a turkey in a given year. Very few kill a limit. I don't think bag limits are the answer.
Quote from: Wasp on June 21, 2020, 12:19:50 PM
I hear what you guys are saying. It would seem to me to figure out the cause of the decline rather than continually lowering limits. Do you think the decline is caused by:
- Increased pressure
- Decrease in non-developed land
- Poor habitat
- Predation (coons, snakes, coyotes, etc)
In SC where I hunt, (home of the NWTF) the management is non-existent on the WMA's. Weve had a17 yconsecutive year decline, with no idea why. South Carolina pays people to manage this and there are no efforts to increase habitat or plant food plots at least on the two WMA's I hunt. So my question being if just continuing to lower the bag limit is all that is ever done there is no indication that will yield higher numbers of turkeys or even slow the decline. If we do not know what had caused the decline, limiting bag limits may be a short term fix but there is no reason to believe it will be a long term solution.
I think its a combination of factors:
-Habitat decline
-Increase in Predator numbers (specifically nest predators like raccoons, possums, skunks)
-Hunter's taking X amount of birds (this is a bigger deal when the first two issues are preventing the population from regenerating numbers at a level to prevent further decline). As I mentioned before, the WHEN also matters IMO... meaning if we wipe out a chunk of the gobbler population in the first two weeks of the season, that time frame usually overlaps with the peak breeding weeks (at least in most of the Southern States) so it has to have some effect on Hens being bred. Hens don't just get bred one random day and then they're done with it AND there's a pecking order so it has a ripple effect when the boss gobblers get whacked early in the breeding cycle.
I'd be really interested for someone wiser than myself to do a formal correlation between raccoon numbers and turkey numbers in that same area. My guess, just from the limited amount that I've studied about it personally is that this may have a bigger cause and effect than most people think. Consider this - a pretty good hunter may "tag out" or account for 3 or 4 (depends on local bag limit) dead birds per year but a single raccoon can stumble on a nest of 12-13 eggs and knock it out in about 30minutes. They're destroying hens and gobblers both when they destroy a nest. My guess is that there's more raccoons in the woods than hunters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYoa2Dp_y0I&t=373s
Idaho has a two bird limit and they can both be taken on the same day. That's a mistake in any state. Limit should always be 1 per day. I'm also starting to look into the youth season that starts a week before the regular. I'm in favor of recruiting new young hunters but not sure about letting them start a week early. I'll have to find out how many they actually get in that early season. Biggest problem is two in the same day. Second biggest might be starting the regular season too early. Sure wouldn't hurt to delay it a week but I know some hunters will complain.
In my province it's a 2 bearded birds, 1 per day limit. In my WMU, which covers 4 counties and around 975 square miles, there are around 650 birds killed a year and have been for the last 8 or so years. I'm not worried about excess hunting, but a wet spring we had last year no doubt hammered the poults so we may see a dip in mature birds next year. I certainly agree that nest predators are an issue and that bearded hens should not be shot, but as the populations stand I have seen nothing but very steady and plentiful numbers - not as good as they were 10 or 15 years ago in the post-reintroduction boom, but I can go to 4 farms at opposite ends of the same county and count well over 7 mature toms and the same or more number of jakes at each one. At least in my hunting spots we should be good barring a bad winter or a similar occurrence which, really, happens in nature whether we want it to or not. It may help that when our season rolls around, the peak nesting period has already occured if we have an early spring, and is well on its way if we run according to schedule so knocking mature birds out of the running has less of an effect than other seasons.
Quote from: Gooserbat on June 21, 2020, 12:40:55 AM
As an Okie I've been killing my three birds per year for years but for the last few years I've went to a self imposed one per county limit. Now everyone has to follow suit...I'm such a trend setter.
So is that one per day per county for the entire season or was there a limit to how many you can take per season total? I mean I can't imagine you could hunt all 77 counties and take one in each so long as you did not get more than one in a county per day?
Modern bag limits are set low enough that they will not impact an over-all change in turkey flocks across a state or region. They will impact the hunting experience. If a population as a whole is declining then something else is happening, other than legal harvest. I stated earlier that I manage the harvest on the land I control. Sure it gives me a steady number of mature gobblers to hunt, but the flock numbers remain unchanged (allowing for year to year fluctuations ). There was a period where this farm wasn't hunted for several years in the 90s and the flock changed very little. My vote still goes to nest and poult depredation.
In Oklahoma it is a max 3 toms. Prior to this year you had counties with either a one bird or two bird limit. Se Oklahoma had a one bird limit combined over a specific 6 countIes Now all counties will be one bird. Se no change and the same 3 bird spring limit
Quote from: jgard on June 22, 2020, 08:54:19 AM
In Oklahoma it is a max 3 toms. Prior to this year you had counties with either a one bird or two bird limit. Se Oklahoma had a one bird limit combined over a specific 6 countIes Now all counties will be one bird. Se no change and the same 3 bird spring limit
Okay, thanks, that makes more sense to me.
no problem And i should say that jakes and bearded hens are legal birds which i dont like
NH just went to a second spring bird last year. That is plenty. 2 total for spring and fall. Maine is 2 spring birds and 5 fall birds anything goes. Just only 2 in a day. Way too many. A lot of hunters up here are meat hunters. They don't even go in the spring and go out and shoot a bunch in the fall, first opportunity. I would like to see a split season in NH. One bird in first 2 weeks and one in the second. No hens, even bearded, and jakes to youths and first time hunters. This will keep the pressure down and hopefully maximize the resource. Plus it will get the "leaky booters" out of the woods, lol. Al
Up here in New York in DEC ZONES 3+4- The Fall Turkey Season was Slashed + Shortened from 6 Weeks to 2 Weeks and the bag lowered from 2 Turkeys to 1 Turkey. In Addition- the Season was pushed back 3 Weeks from October 1st to The 3rd Week in October. This change was started before the Fall Turkey Season of 2015. That same year the Early Bow Deer Season was moved back 3 Weeks from the 3rd Week of October to October 1st in DEC ZONES 3 +4. ( Basically a Switch was done..). The Turkey Population was Strong and remains so. " My observation". The Problem, I see in 2 areas that, I hunt Fall Turkeys in every year are NO TURKEYS where they always roost just prior to October 1st. Traditionally- just about everything opened on October 1st as far as alot of Small game and remains so. Squirrel,Rabbit,Pheasant,Woodcock,etc,etc. The only thing, I can figure is in those 3 weeks before the opening day of Fall Turkey Season--- the Turkeys are being Poached out of their ( regular) Fall Turkey Roosts. I guarantee some Fall Turkey Poachers are out on the October 1st Squirrel opening day. I already had to Yell at 3 Fall Turkey Hunters back in 2014- one year before the Fall season change. Legal Time is Sunrise in the Fall and these 3 were shooting before Sunrise. Just a Cascade of Shots. I know because, I was back there and getting ready to set up and wait. Only my Yelling stopped the Shots. Now-- when, I scout back in these 2 areas before the opening date of the 3rd week in October, I just see very old Turkey sign or none. I suspect this is probably happening in many other secluded areas. I don't think that moving the Fall NY Turkey Season back 3 Weeks has helped much. On the other hand-- the Bow Deer hunters are enjoying 3 extra weeks since 2015. Just my personal observation in a few of my areas that used to be solid in the Fall.