Florida FWC Proposes to Ban Reaping on WMAs

[Dtrkyman]

I rarely want more regs but would be all for it, was on a hot bird in Missouri this year, he went silent and I figured he was sneaking in or out, some clown come stumbling down the ridge with a gobbler decoy.

Waved him over and was like dud that is not the best idea you ever had, he wasn't even "reaping at the time just walking through the timber, moron!

Didn't think it mattered in the past, but a lot of fools would eat tag soup much more often.

[CAPTJJ]

Another oddity about the Florida licensing system is that the turkey stamp isn't for one particular season, if you buy the full year it is good for 365 days. In 2022 I was still hunting with the stamp I bought in 2021 due to how the season dates worked out. I had 4 days left and killed one opening morning, hunted 3 more days and decided to save the money instead of buying another year.

[ChiefBubba]

They need to take that extra application fee money and put it toward securing some more property. Otherwise down the road they'll be no turkeys or just a few that learned to roost on houses and nest in gardens.


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I agree but will say open up more state land that's not open to hunting now. Lots of land not open. Bubba

[btodd00]

If I'm reading correctly none of the new proposals will take effect until July 2024 so this spring will be same old same old.  Be interesting how many of these new suggestions are actually implemented. No state needs physical tags more than Florida but that wasn't suggested.  Too bad since their new mandatory reporting system is apparently being widely ignored if their refusal to disclose the results gives any indication.  Btw - I'm still waiting on my FOIA request to obtain this information from FWC.

Add - by my unofficial count FL has 139 WMAs but 102 aren't manned or have drop boxes and many do have quota turkey hunts.  This is an incredible gap.  The allowing of any over 65 year old resident to hunt or fish without any accountability is also a major problem for accurate harvest totals.  If these "exempts" only hunt private land and "forget" to call in their birds the whole system breaks down.  Everyone should have a license (even if it's free) that includes a permanent physical tag.

I submitted an FOIA for the harvest data as well, the first one I got nothing back regarding turkeys but there were other things I asked for that came back. I sent another with just the request for turkey harvest data and I got an excel spreadsheet of all the applicants for quota hunts..

The military bases have it right on the check stations. Not sure where the funding comes from for those check stations and not saying the bases are the most game rich lands in Florida but the data collection they do is best I have seen

[OJR]

This "feel good" ban will affect so few people that it is a total waste of time. Something just to make the public think think that the WMA folks are earning their money. I'd like to see the same effort put towards habitat enrichment and encouraging predator control. But then I'm just a dumb turkey hunter.

[Crghss]

This "feel good" ban will affect so few people that it is a total waste of time. Something just to make the public think think that the WMA folks are earning their money. I'd like to see the same effort put towards habitat enrichment and encouraging predator control. But then I'm just a dumb turkey hunter.

We have good predator control, they're called pythons