Kansas goes to 1 spring bird

[nativeks]

Vote was tonight. One spring bird for this season. Applies to NE, SE, and SC kansas.

Fall season vote was quite contentious. Biologist wanted to close it. NWTF folks stood up siding with the biologist. One commissioner is a big fall hunter. He proposed to cut it to 40 days. Another commissioner tried to tack on no hens. Ended up passing for a 40 day 1 bird limit in the fall.

[fallhnt]

I haven't noticed much of a change but it is what it is.

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[HookedonHooks]

Wow!!! Not stoked about it to say the least, but means more time for hunting other states I suppose. Awful long spring season for only one bird.... maybe should've considered shortening season, or delaying a second tag opportunity similar to MO after the first week.

As already said it is what it is, and we'll see if it helps the populations. KS was often a place out of staters could come and kill two birds on the first day out, in the same day. Not that the pop has been drastically reduced, but that shouldn't be the expectation or standard for management. Still healthy populations out this way in my opinion.

[nativeks]

Nc and NW kansas still get 2.

Turkey population has cratered in this part of the state. Who knows how much lower it will go. Poult survey was the lowest ever recorded. I have seen 1. Interesting developments. I didnt think it would happen due to revenue.

[nativeks]

https://ksoutdoors.com/KDWPT-Info/Commission/Current-LIVE-Commission-Meeting

It's the 2nd video about 32 minutes in

[silvestris]

No problem; just strive to introduce more to the sport.

[3bailey3]

funny Sil, go tiger.....

[cuttinAR]

Vote was tonight. One spring bird for this season. Applies to NE, SE, and SC kansas.

Fall season vote was quite contentious. Biologist wanted to close it. NWTF folks stood up siding with the biologist. One commissioner is a big fall hunter. He proposed to cut it to 40 days. Another commissioner tried to tack on no hens. Ended up passing for a 40 day 1 bird limit in the fall.

Are the changes in effect for the 2020 season?

[nativeks]

Vote was tonight. One spring bird for this season. Applies to NE, SE, and SC kansas.

Fall season vote was quite contentious. Biologist wanted to close it. NWTF folks stood up siding with the biologist. One commissioner is a big fall hunter. He proposed to cut it to 40 days. Another commissioner tried to tack on no hens. Ended up passing for a 40 day 1 bird limit in the fall.

Are the changes in effect for the 2020 season?

Yes

[Neill_Prater]

As a Missouri resident and long time Kansas hunter, having only missed a couple of  Spring seasons since Kansas opened the season to nonresidents, sometime in the early 90's if memory serves me well, I have seen the boom, and, unfortunately, the bust, in the turkey population in Kansas, particularly the southeastern portion of the state, where the bulk of my hunting has taken place.

Even hunting public ground, around the turn of the century, it was quite possible to call in multiple longbeards in a single day. Hey, they were still wild birds, so they didn't always go for a ride in the truck, but the opportunity existed for success virtually every time one entered the woods. I recall driving around the day before the season opener one year and seeing over 30 adult gobblers. Several times I saw huge groups of jakes. I recall 29 crossing the road in front of me one year. From 2000 until 2007, there seemed to be a steady, but noticeable, decline. Still lots of birds, but you often had to burn more shoe leather to be successful. Then, in 2007, torrential rains hit the area during the nesting season (one local resident told me he had 16 inches of rain overnight), decimating the birds.

In the years since, I have seen a rebound in some areas, but didn't even hunt that portion of the state for several years. In the last 6 years or so, I have been able to tag out each season, but nearly all those birds have come from private land. Public land hunting became very challenging, with only a small population in limited areas compared to 10 years earlier.

I hate to see the limit reduction, it will likely prevent me from the opportunity to harvest 2 birds, because of the logistics involved in travelling to north central areas of the state, and, if I actually believed it would cause a rebound in the population, I would support it, but, unfortunately, I suspect it will do little, if anything to help it. Will it give more individuals the opportunity to harvest at least one bird? Possibly. If I tote 2 back to Missouri, instead of one, that obviously gives someone else at least the possiblity of harvesting the other bird. IF that was the intent of the Commissioners, then I applaud their efforts. If their intent was to allow the flocks to rebound, I think they missed the mark.

I'm not into fall turkey hunting. Couldn't wait for fall seasons to open here back around 1980, and hunted periodically for the next 25 years or so, but after killing my last Autumn bird, a gobbler, maybe 15 years ago, and wishing all the while it had happened in the Spring instead, I just quit. That said, I understand those who do love it. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. Missouri calls the fall turkey harvest insignificant with regard to its effects on the overall health of the population. But, few areas of Missouri have seen the low numbers that exist in many areas of Kansas, from my observations.  I grew up hunting Bobwhite quail. My Dad was an addict. He only had an 8th grade education, but understood the basics of conservation. More than once I recall witnessing him watch a tiny covey of flushed birds sail away unscathed, especially late in the season, because he understood that if you left too few birds, they wouldn't survive until Spring. Okay, I know the biology of turkeys and ground dwelling birds like quail is a lot different, but the basic idea has to be the same. If there is an extremely depressed population, it makes absolutely no sense, to me, to make hens fair game, any time of the year.

Gobblers, after the hens are bred, are expendable. From my limited reading, it appears biologists are beginning to agree that allowing more mature, dominant birds survive until later in the breeding season helps with the reproduction rate. In other words, open the season later. Why not close the fall season, and delay the spring opening for a couple of weeks in the struggling areas of the state?

[Dtrkyman]

In my opinion we all got spoiled by population booms with turkeys in the 90s.

Poor hatch years, more nest robbers in many areas and lots of birds being killed for a long time now has taken its toll!

The perfect storm can't last and likely neither can the down turn.


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[Delmar ODonnell]

I wonder if the State has had the discussion of the number of illegally taken birds in Kansas (mainly trespassing.) I have no evidence to support this, but when I was hunting there last year I couldn't help but think that the number of birds taken by trespassers must be far greater in Kansas than other states, mainly because of the open terrain, low people population, wide distribution of public walk in areas, and high number of nonresident "hunters."

Some people begin the hunt with no concept of respecting property boundaries, and many other's moral convictions are quickly forgotten when they see a strutter in a field with no house within 10 miles. Like I said, I don't know if there any evidence to back this up, and I don't know if that number is material to the overall population, but I do think it's very plausible that this could be a contributing factor to a decreased huntable population. I don't know how the State could effectively reduce the times this happens.

It really leaves me with animosity when someone tells me they "hopped a fence or two" to shoot or retrieve a bird they shot across the property line, and I could see this happening a lot in Kansas or other areas with similar terrain. Any input from y'all on this?

[stinkpickle]

I wonder if the State has had the discussion of the number of illegally taken birds in Kansas (mainly trespassing.) I have no evidence to support this, but when I was hunting there last year I couldn't help but think that the number of birds taken by trespassers must be far greater in Kansas than other states, mainly because of the open terrain, low people population, wide distribution of public walk in areas, and high number of nonresident "hunters."

Some people begin the hunt with no concept of respecting property boundaries, and many other's moral convictions are quickly forgotten when they see a strutter in a field with no house within 10 miles. Like I said, I don't know if there any evidence to back this up, and I don't know if that number is material to the overall population, but I do think it's very plausible that this could be a contributing factor to a decreased huntable population. I don't know how the State could effectively reduce the times this happens.

It really leaves me with animosity when someone tells me they "hopped a fence or two" to shoot or retrieve a bird they shot across the property line, and I could see this happening a lot in Kansas or other areas with similar terrain. Any input from y'all on this?

There are certainly some stretches of country in Kansas that would make it easy for poachers to whack away at anything...miles and miles of abandoned farm houses.  I spent an entire afternoon driving and scouting around NC Kansas a few years back, and I thought how strange it felt that I could probably count the other vehicles I encountered on one hand.  But even if poaching were THE big problem out there, it would still take a lot of poachers to decimate flocks that size.

[Turkeyman]

I concur with the above. Legally killed turkeys, plus a far lesser number of poached turkeys, is not the problem of declining populations nationwide.

[kytrkyhntr]

Not sure how you local guys feel about those changes. In Kentucky we have what a feel like is a super late season and only 2 birds. Would love to see the season come in earlier here. I don't Mind two birds but would love to kill 3. I wish KY would go to 3 bearded turkeys (spring+Fall) and leave it at that. No hens.