Way to go Georgia??

[Stoeger_bird]

If passed this will be another southern state making needed changes for the betterment of the wild turkey! It's state to state peer pressure lol! Hope all SE states fall in line!

[Pluffmud]

Personally, I believe for my state, those regs would be the equivelant of prescribing advil to remedy a headache caused by dehydration. We dont need advil, we need water. My state loves to add more regs to solve poor management issues.... People, the regs arent the issue. Its a habitat management issue, atleast around here. I scouted the forest again today. Thousands of acres on fire again. Now tell me, where will hens nest now? It will probablu result in a poor hatch. Again. And my state will add more regs. Again. Its absolute insanity.

[Dtrkyman]

Early harvest interrupt's breeding and impacts the hatch.  They need any and all help they can get!

[ElkTurkMan]

I am totally good with it. I will gladly sacrifice a little bit of season as well as one less bird if helps the population and means better hunting going forward.

[Blackduck]

Set the dates where they need to be for biological reasons. Cut the season/limit on public land that needs it to preserve a certain desired quality of hunting experience.

But leave the private land limits alone, or even increase them. If you don't have access to private land turkeys then that's on you. I almost never take more than 2 longbeards off a tract of land in a year, maybe 3 if there are a lot of that year. And I hunt almost every day of the 5 week season. And I rarely go on the same tract of land twice in a season.

Neither I nor anyone that I know that hunts private needs to have limits lowered in order to have a good population of turkeys. We manage our flocks ourselves. And killing gobblers isn't affecting that population as long as they have bred before being shot.

It sounds to me like y'all need to find some different ground to stomp. Get off the interweb and go knock on some doors, meet some landowners, be a nice guy.

If you can't get permission it isn't anyone's fault but your own. There are still nice people out there if you make a good impression.

[Dtrkyman]

Blackduck I know a guy with exclusive rights to a large tract of land in Alabama, he has killed as many as 13 birds in one season, not everyone is a steward of the land!

I understand your point and also am not fond of others actions dictating what I can and can't do.  At least they are being pro active.

[Gooserbat]

I wonder what nesting survival would do if you had to produce a set of coyote ears or a coon tail to secure each additional tag.

[silvestris]

Seems to me that we all need to go out and recruit some more turkey hunters, don't y'all think.  Maybe we can get the limit down to one every three years with the season set for only the first week of July.

[Howie g]

I wonder what nesting survival would do if you had to produce a set of coyote ears or a coon tail to secure each additional tag.

Now this is a great idea ,, but sadly ,most won't put out the effort to run a few traps or do anything to maybe increase the population.   But be the lst ones to complain about the #s being low .

[Blackduck]

Indeed, killing predators helps. We shoot them. One buddy traps them. If you need to eradicate predators there are much more efficient ways as well. I haven't employeed the efficient ways personally, but they are out there, and the guys I know who have done it have seen a big increase in all game.

Poor land management, dense predator populations, and human sprawl into once prime "turkey" areas will not be solved by restrictive seasons and bag limits.

On private ground that has been preserved from development, that is well managed, with predators controlled, there are plenty of turkeys. And some people want to reward that guy who has spent blood, sweat, and tears, and a small fortune, by reducing the already puny bag limit he can take in a season?

I don't know the guy you speak of who shot 13 one year, nor do I know the land he had access to. I do know a fella who shot 17 one year, many years ago. He had the run of 20,000 acres of private east coast hardwoods spread through several counties. He shot/called over 30 that got killed that season, as he told it mostly shooting when birds circled around back or when he didn't have someone with him or when they doubled and he was always #2. I was a fledgling turkey hunter then, and both times he took me that year I was the shooter, and did bag a bird, and didn't feel like he wanted to be greedy. One of the birds actually did circle around and was in front of him, and when it went into strut and faced away he told me to roll around and take the shot. I learned a lot about killing turkeys from him. Even though highly illegal, I never felt he was unethical by taking 1 gobbler for every 550-600 acres he had to hunt(counting him and his guests, 1 for every 1175-1200 acres for him personally). I will say one thing more, I never hunted with anyone who was as quick to leave a bird to look for a hotter bird as that guy, but he had the land to do it. He killed a lot of short spurred birds, with the occasional long spur. I prefer spurs to beards, so we differed there. I personally hunt mostly smaller pieces further apart, and slow hunt the piece I'm on knowing that might be the only day I'm there. Different styles for sure, but that's what makes it fun. I'm blessed that I work with a lot of hunters, and never have trouble finding someone to go with me. If the law was just though, each property would be issued a certain number of tags and the landowner could give them or sell them to who he chose. And the public could fight for the lottery for the 10 tags on the WMA. That would be a well managed population.

JMO, not worth much, but coming from a different perspective from what I see many times.


*To clarify my personal situation, I have access to about 20 properties totalling 5000 acres, ranging from 17 to 1700 acres, with a 30 day season that I hunt 25 days of. My closest property is across the street, and my furthest is 4 hours away. Most are at least an hour away, and they are in all directions. I enjoy hunting different land, differnt scenery, different topography. Some is family land, some is leased, and most of it is a door knock and a please and thank you. I find it much easier to get permission when it is clear that I will only come once or twice a season, not all the time, making myself a nusiance. Give it a try, spread out, meet people, ask to come hunt once or twice. I promise you will enjoy it. And you'll suddenly wonder why you have to keep asking more people to go with you , to prolong your season, when you really aren't hurting the resource, whether you're the shooter or the guy you are telling to pull the trigger. It's all about managing the flock on any piece of land. Never kill more than half your longbeards. If you follow that rule, and if you manage the habitat and the predators, you will have good hunting.

[Paulmyr]

In Mn they had land owner tenant tags. Land owners or people who lived on the property  were able to get tags every year. When Mn held a lottery for tags as long as they let anyone who asked, permission to hunt. Dnr would post a list of every land owner tenant that purchased a tag.

[quavers59]

   Blackduck-- " increase Private Land Bag Limits"?!!
  I don't  think you are looking at the whole picture with an open mind..

[Blackduck]

Not looking at the whole picture? Please enlarge my view.

Here is how I see it- if someone owns 1000 acres, and has 20 longbeards on it that they see regularly, then if they kill 10 of them after the gobblers have bred, the resource has been harvested appropriately. If that person has 500 acres, and 10 longbeards, then they should be able to harvest 5. If they have have 100 acres with 2 longbeards, they should be able to harvest 1. And if they have 5000 acres with 100 longbeards, then they should be able to harvest 50. It should be their choice who gets the tags.

If you want to protect the resource, eliminate killing hens in the fall, and start the spring season later. Eliminate shooting jakes even. Cutting bag limits on gobblers in the spring won't fix anything. Habitat managemeent, predator management, and protecting hens is how you grow a turkey population. That is the big picture- I think.

[Dtrkyman]

I understand the frustration, I managed a few thousand acres in Illinois, several properties in the same general area, however several basically had no turkeys a couple had some and one was loaded! 

Needed to manage each differently for sure, we did not put enough pressure on them to make much difference though.  I could kill 3 birds a year in Illinois, typically shot them off of 3 different properties just because I could and it made sense.

Illinois has landowner tags but you would still be limited to 3 total birds, those however are good for the whole season, not regulated to the 5 seasons others are.

I was always curious about fall harvest, though most places I hunted over the years with ample turkey population had tons of hens!  Also very little fall hunting in most places.

Most gobblers are still actively breeding when harvested, hopefully the bulk of breeding is done though.

Always a balancing act and game and fish is going to piss off someone, if they give benefits to private landowners John Q public will be pissed!

[turkey_slayer]

Blackduck I know a guy with exclusive rights to a large tract of land in Alabama, he has killed as many as 13 birds in one season, not everyone is a steward of the land!

I understand your point and also am not fond of others actions dictating what I can and can't do.  At least they are being pro active.

I don't have a dog in this hunt but how is changing the season or bag limits going to affect a guy killing 13 birds? Doubt a regulation change is going to turn him into a law abiding citizen

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