Re: Pennsylvania bans rifles for fall turkey season

[idratherb]

 

[28roper]

I made the assumption deer and turkey seasons overlapped there. Fwiw, someone else here stated rifles should be banned for deer. Apples to oranges really, hunter orange to be exact. Good luck with your efforts in PA.
[/quote]

Yeah it's a bit different here.  There are so many hunters in PA that it would indeed be dangerous if that was the case. Opening day of rifle season for deer is a pretty wild event. Apologies if I misunderstood you.  I get my hackles up when politics or government agencies start creating regulations with a broad brush.

Good luck with the rest of your season as well.

[quavers59]

  Good Deal.  As the late Dwain Bland wrote-- Real Turkey Hunters Shoot Shotguns.

[Twowithone]

Pa. has always had stupid game laws period. Case in point is the 2nd Gobbler tag you can purchase. I can go hunting early in the morning and get my gobbler and then I know a place that holds a gobbler or two 12 miles down the road by Pa. law I cant hunt that gobbler law says 1 per day. The game commission will gladly take your $25.00 for the 2nd gobbler tag but the commish tells you when you can hunt for that 2nd gobbler.

[Will]

I've been watching this post close since I hunt with my 22 mag in the mountains of Maryland but I will say this. I have thought it was time to become more involved with my states NWTF. I have seen a few posts on here that tend to lean towards turkey numbers decreasing and game management being the reason. I have seen a steady decline in the number of geese on Maryland's Eastern Shore and our season bag limit changed from two to one bird. My firm belief is politicians and lack of proper management. Not so much Maryland but the east coast. I see this occurring with our turkey population and seasons being shortened if we don't start standing up. Not to get too political but kind of like the rest of the crap that's occurring in our country that's not hunting related. We can all sit on the side lines and complain or be part of the solution and come together to be the voice these game managers need to hear. I know there is some perception the NWTF has not done their due diligence judging by some prior posts on this site but I plan to become more involved, attend more meetings of some local chapters and hopefully see for myself and have some input. I know guys in the South complain of spring burning from the wood companies that own the land. Who is our voice for the management of the Wild Turkey and what the hell is going on. I think it's time we make a stand because I certainly don't want this resource to decline. The QDMA guys have seemed to get it right in parts of the state I hunt because we have seen some quality whitetail bucks being killed. Just a thought                             

[wvmntnhick]

But, it's going to be a regional thing in terms of turning things around. Much like QDMA, it doesn't work everywhere. QDMA is a joke back home. The mere concept of killing does to improve herd health and getting the buck/doe ratio closer is insane. There's not enough deer there to get excited about. Killing the does won't help any of it. Years ago when the population was insanely high, sure. But definitely not now. And the same will be for the turkey population. I'd bet solid money if they paid more attention to spring hatch/survival rate and put some time into getting the habitat right, there would be a world of change take place. Again, I don't believe for half a second that the weapon dictates population rise/decline in any way, shape or fashion.


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[Will]

I agree wvmntnhick it's a regional thing. We have seen farming practices change in the last 10 or so years where they chemically burn the fields prior to tiling on some of the places I hunt. I'm sure chemicals can have an impact on these birds. We've had the Bald Eagle make a comeback and I know they are hammering the poults. Some places I now hunt you will see quite a few Bald Eagles perched along logging roads when you normally seen strutting birds tending hens. It's been mentioned about how PA has screwed up the grouse population. When was the last time you have seen sound logging for clear cuts. Just throwing this out there for a bigger picture. Seems like we all have something in common and that's our passion to chase this bird. We can't eat our own because of the way others have different ways of pursuing their passion. I'm more concerned over the reasoning behind making it illegal to hunt them with a rifle and what data they used to come to this conclusion.

[knifeshark]

I've missed way, way more birds in the fall with a small caliber rifle than I have with a shotgun in the spring. Many of those hunts would have been successful had I toted the scattergun instead, so no advantage there. And, I've never lost a bird in the fall.

Perhaps those unfamiliar mistakenly picture guys perched high in permanent deer stands with a 22-250 on sand bags picking off field birds next county over. In the big woods of PA, to be successful one needs to put lots of miles on the boots going up and down those heavily wooded, steep mountain ridges to finally find the scratchings, then maybe find the flock, then try and break them. If broke, set up, try to call them back in (and in my case promptly miss them). That's fall turkey hunting in the big woods, no sand bags, no deer stands, no sniping required.

Banning rifles and handguns won't reverse years of declining populations and these board members voting as if it will are misinformed. That makes the board of directors casting a vote banning rifles, instead of identifying the real reasons for population declines, nothing more than political. And thanks to those politics, a long tradition of break them up and call them back in fall turkey hunting with small caliber rifles and handguns is over.

The lesson here everyone should pay attention too, and other posts have touched on it, once something is gone, its not coming back. Banning rifles was easy political work, when the board of directors should have devoted this time to change seasons, close seasons, reduce tags, address predators, reduce failed nesting rates, increase poult production, and improve habitat, better known as the hard work.

+1  Very well said !


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[Franklin7x57]

I don't have a dog in this fight because I'm deer hunting then. But the area I hunt in PA is full of road hunters, driving down the road 5-10 miles a hour in orange, so I know what they're doing.
Most camps that kill a turkey here are riding around looking for turkeys to shoot. Everyone here will agree that's not turkey hunting.