What is your state doing?

[ddturkeyhunter]

Illinois has outlawed shooting feral hogs as well, there are a few pockets of hogs in the state, no idea on that logic?



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Not sure if I heard it or read it somewhere or what that there has been some studies, to show depends on what pig is killed or removed from the group they disperse to new areas making it harder to get them all. So rather then killing that single pig they would rather try trapping the entire group or family at one time. But that cost a lot of money so nothing happening. And the problem gets bigger.
The same was said in norther states with problem with wolves, if you remove the dominant wolf the pack will break up. I though it was stories just made up to save the single animals from being shot or removed. In 2011 I trapped (durning MN legal hunting, trapping season) A large male wolf from a pack of elven. That hourse ranch had seen that pack every week before then, but after that no more. It was a large male maybe the alfa male so in the case of wolves maybe true.

[deerhunt1988]

As far as dwindling populations go, which seems to be the norm in a lot of states. Do y'all think the increased hunting pressure on turkeys has hunt the numbers? Or do you even think there is an increase of turkey hunters?


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Definitely an increase in 'traveling' turkey hunters and it will continue to increase due to social media.

Another thing to keep in mind is how 'effective' turkey hunters are now days. You have folks taking 70 yards shots with TSS (killing and wounding turkey that otherwise would have lived), you have folks deer hunting them out of ground blinds with full strut decoys (which is much more effective at taking out those dominant, henned up early season toms that otherwise would have been dang near unkillable until later in the season - thus potentially disrupting the breeding cycle for a few days), you have 'the reapers' taking out field birds that would have been tough back in the day, you have mapping apps like OnX, and the list goes on. All this boils down to we are as efficient at killing turkey as ever before. And more folks are traveling out of state to kill them.

A lot of experts theorize that removing the dominant tom early season can disrupt the breeding cycle for a few days. No research is conclusive yet, but a lot of biologist are looking into this issue.  In some bird species females have a 'preferred male' they chose to breed with. I believe Kenny Morgan actually talks about it in one of his books. What happens if there is a 'preferred male' and he keeps getting his head rolled every few days on heavily hunted public land? This could especially be a problem in areas with early openers and in areas without a lot of turkey.

The increase in traveling turkey hunters has DEFINITELY hurt hunt QUALITY on public lands. Kansas was the first poster child of this (not considering their recent turkey decline, just hunt quality back in the late 2000-late 2010 years). Seems Chadron, Nebraska has went the same way. Once folks jump on the bandwagon and flock to these places, I start heading to new places. Once again, this trend will continue to get worse thanks to social media.

Some folks in this thread seem to think their state can control the management practices that happen on private industrial timberlands. NEWSFLASH: The timber companies are in it for the money. Not wildlife. And your state has hardly any means of fixing that.


Turkey hunters are quick to place the blame elsewhere. They want to fill their limit in every state they travel to and expect mother nature to replenish all the birds, and maybe even add more!, without putting in any management effort themselves. Now this doesn't apply to all turkey hunters, but take a minute and think about how many you know that seriously get their hands dirty trying to help the turkey population where they hunt.

I've also witnessed a lot of ignorance in this thread in regards to wildlife management. It'd be worthwhile for a few of you to study up more on that topic before you start spouting off blame and assumptions.

[fallhnt]

The poaching might not be so bad this year they are putting more law in the woods afraid someone might take a crack at a pig

In Missouri, it is illegal to shoot a feral pig?  What is the logic behind that regulation?

In SC, they have changed the limit from 5 to 3.  Changed the season dates to a later opener in both zones.  Made it illegal to kill more than 1 a day.  You can now only kill 1 in the first 10 days of the season.  And they started charging for turkey tags.

I haven't heard anyone talking about how they liked the changes yet.

What you were not told is on public land it is illegal to hunt hogs. The whole group will move off under pressure making them harder to kill. MDC is trapping hogs and doing it successfully. Another reason to make it illegal is because people are releasing them into national forest land to have something to hunt in the off season.

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[LaLongbeard]

As already stated Louisiana moved the season opener from mid March to first week in April. The reason for the move was that most of the kill numbers were in the first week, with a March opener. Most of the Gobblers were dead  before the breeding was finished. Now with the 2-3 week delay in opener hopefully more hens will breed before the hunting starts. There were several studies done on nest start dates and Gobbler harvest dates. Moving the opener is probably the cheapest and least amount of effort possible but it is better than nothing. For those that don't understand the why I'd suggest reading up on Turkey nesting in Louisiana.
       Even though the opener of any season usually has the highest kill numbers, the April opener drastically lowered La kill numbers. No more strutter  decoys and tents. By the time the season opens the Gobblers have all the hens collected up and are less likely to want to fight your funky chicken decoy lol. Less Gobbling ,because they don't have too, decoys less effective. Makes the part timers give up which is a win any way you look at it.

[owlhoot]

Oh yeah its all about the elk we are going to have a season $10 a chance for a tag 50 tags total are they serious

Very serious.
With the amounts of deer hunters in MO.  Imagine how much money they are going to bring in per tag.
They'll be dancing around and singing "We are in the money" "We are in the money".

[fallhnt]

I hunt ~7k acres of well managed public in IL. They have said for years that the population is ~200 birds, ~30 birds per 1k acres. I've seen this in other public areas of the state too. ~50 birds a year are killed on this ground,Spring and Fall. IL would not be a choice for me,if I was a NR. But pressure is spread out with a draw system. With habitat being lost every day and nobody trapping any more, spreading out pressure and habitat management seems to be keys. The good 'ol days may be gone but it's still a heck of a lot better than when I first started hunting. IL didn't have a Spring season where I hunted ,only Fall archery turkey, which I still favor. I hunted MO in the Spring. I blame a lot of the problem on deer hunting. The boom has caused leasing and leasing for outfitters. How many of us can knock a door and get permission to small game hunt and trap like we did when we were kids?

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[Flounder]

I know and seen first hand some birds last year were trapped in Brunswick County NC at the Ocean Isle airport and were reloacted in TX.

[owlhoot]

It`s a tiny and relatively insignificant thing, but as individual hunters on our property we`ve limited ourselves to one bird per season. Only two of the four of us really hunt the 400 acres after the opening weekend. Personally, I`m going to try to be selective this year and will let birds I think are younger two year olds walk. I`ve not killed that many birds, but I`ve come to just enjoy the whole process and the woods more. Getting old!

We had done the same thing too. Even only let the youngsters shoot for a year or two on ground in north Missouri.
A couple of us traveled down south Missouri to a more gobbler rich environment. Hogs down there that we couldn't shoot , MDC had cage traps by the river and said not to scatter the hogs as it would make their work harder to locate them and set the cages back up.
Haven't seen any hog in north Missouri. Coons are thick everywhere and I think they are the main problem.
I do know lately I have seen a heck of a lot more of them than turkeys.
Thought I was calling the turkeys. Getting old too.

[GobbleNut]

I know and seen first hand some birds last year were trapped in Brunswick County NC at the Ocean Isle airport and were reloacted in TX.

Here in NE Texas, NWTF is releasing eastern birds to rebuild our population. They are doingg super stockings...80 birds per stocking. They have released several groups lately.

There are plenty of places where "too many turkeys" is a problem.  Aggressive trap and transplant programs,...like we saw in the 70's and 80's,...are one piece of the puzzle for restoring wild turkey numbers in many of the locations where they are now struggling.  Throwing birds at the issue without corresponding analysis of the problems causing the declines,...and then implementing programs to address those problems,...is not a solution,...unless the plan is to in essence move to a "put and take" management strategy akin to stocking trout. 

The solution to declining turkey populations involves a combination of identifying what the culprits are, doing what is possible to resolve those issues, and then supplementing turkey numbers through transplantation to speed up the recovery process.

The stocking efforts in east Texas,...and I am assuming corresponding research to identify the issues and implement management strategies to overcome those issues,...is exactly what should be happening everywhere we have problems.  ...And what should also be happening is that NWTF members should be pressuring their leadership to "get with the program" and using the NWTF influence, numbers, and MONEY to address the problems.

Perhaps that is already happening around the country.  I don't know for sure.  If it is happening, it is a lot less apparent than it was forty years ago.  Bottom line is that there are solutions to restoring strong turkey populations where they have declined. It just takes the focus of wildlife managers and sportsmen who care to get it done.

[Gobbler428]

The poaching might not be so bad this year they are putting more law in the woods afraid someone might take a crack at a pig

In Missouri, it is illegal to shoot a feral pig?  What is the logic behind that regulation?

In SC, they have changed the limit from 5 to 3.  Changed the season dates to a later opener in both zones.  Made it illegal to kill more than 1 a day.  You can now only kill 1 in the first 10 days of the season.  And they started charging for turkey tags.

I haven't heard anyone talking about how they liked the changes yet.

I like the changes. For the past several years we have had a longer season beginning in
mid March and going through the first week of May. In the area of the state I hunt, Game Zone 2, we have killed more birds overall and the majority were killed the first week of the season during the peek of mating activity. That is the reason for the season not beginning until April 1st this year, like it has in the past as well as the reason for the one bird limit the first 10 days of the season. If we want the population to increase, then we have to give the gobblers time to mate undisturbed for at least part of the peak mating period.  Residents must pay $5.00 for their 3 tags and out of state hunters can purchase 2 tags for $100.00. Tags have always been free until this year. According to what I've been told, funds collected from turkey tag sales are to go towards research regarding the depletion of the turkey population in the state. SC has the same problem as other states when it comes to the timber companies. They cut all the hardwood and mature pine they can and replace it all with pines - the faster growing $ tree.   It's all about the $'s.  As far as the hogs are concerned, we've got plenty of them and we kill and trap as many as we can but it's a never ending battle that I'm not sure if we will ever win. We have had to stop planting chufa on one of our tracks due to the hogs. We plant it, the hogs root it up before the turkey ever get an opportunity to eat it. Waste of time and money. In conclusion, I agree with the changes in our turkey hunting regulations and appreciate both SCDNR and the SC State Legislature for at least making an attempt to do something about this issue in our state.

[1iagobblergetter]

They ignore the real problems that they know they can't fix and try to fix the secondary issues.

What's the secondary?? Raises for all and/or reintroduction of bobcats?

[James gang]

People are really upset with m.d.c. there is a growing group of mo residents that are not buying tags for anything until things change. There are people hanging dead hogs from signs that say feral hog hunting is illegal.There are lots of pics and comments on facebook shoot you can kill 5-10 turkeys for 5000 or one pig.We need a hunter running things that cares about our native species instead of elk pigs and making more $$$

[LaLongbeard]

Hard too believe a state would actually protect feral hogs? La can ship a couple thousand a month if anyone is interested. Hogs WILL get out of control in a matter of a few years then  its to late to do anything.

[Kylongspur88]

In KY they did an online survey we never heard the results of and if you ask anyone at FW about the decline in birds they'll either feed you some standard line about a bad hatch in that area or look at you like you have a third eye and haven't heard of this thing called a turkey before. If this were deer or elk they'd be in crisis mode. Birds and small game just don't matter much because they aren't revenue generators like the animals sporting antlers.

Forgot about the elk, MDC seems very concerned about them. A little herd that nobody can hunt. If they do have a season I can only imagine how the tag distribution will go.

If I want to see or hunt an elk I'll go to Idaho or Wyoming.

Get ready for the circus. When KY got a huntable population everyone was excited but that all changes after a few years of seeing how the draw was run. Corruptions and dirty dealings set in quick. A quick Google search will give you days worth of reading. FW likes to advertise we have 10,000 elk now. I've heard guys who actually work in FW say that number is actually much higher yet they haven't changed up the draw system to allow more average folks get an opportunity at a tag or give preference points to residents etc...It's a crock IMO. But I guess that's what happens when your FW is run by a commission of political appointees with unchecked power and receives money from non discript foundations.

[Happy]

As far as dwindling populations go, which seems to be the norm in a lot of states. Do y'all think the increased hunting pressure on turkeys has hunt the numbers? Or do you even think there is an increase of turkey hunters?


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Definitely an increase in 'traveling' turkey hunters and it will continue to increase due to social media.

Another thing to keep in mind is how 'effective' turkey hunters are now days. You have folks taking 70 yards shots with TSS (killing and wounding turkey that otherwise would have lived), you have folks deer hunting them out of ground blinds with full strut decoys (which is much more effective at taking out those dominant, henned up early season toms that otherwise would have been dang near unkillable until later in the season - thus potentially disrupting the breeding cycle for a few days), you have 'the reapers' taking out field birds that would have been tough back in the day, you have mapping apps like OnX, and the list goes on. All this boils down to we are as efficient at killing turkey as ever before. And more folks are traveling out of state to kill them.

A lot of experts theorize that removing the dominant tom early season can disrupt the breeding cycle for a few days. No research is conclusive yet, but a lot of biologist are looking into this issue.  In some bird species females have a 'preferred male' they chose to breed with. I believe Kenny Morgan actually talks about it in one of his books. What happens if there is a 'preferred male' and he keeps getting his head rolled every few days on heavily hunted public land? This could especially be a problem in areas with early openers and in areas without a lot of turkey.

The increase in traveling turkey hunters has DEFINITELY hurt hunt QUALITY on public lands. Kansas was the first poster child of this (not considering their recent turkey decline, just hunt quality back in the late 2000-late 2010 years). Seems Chadron, Nebraska has went the same way. Once folks jump on the bandwagon and flock to these places, I start heading to new places. Once again, this trend will continue to get worse thanks to social media.

Some folks in this thread seem to think their state can control the management practices that happen on private industrial timberlands. NEWSFLASH: The timber companies are in it for the money. Not wildlife. And your state has hardly any means of fixing that.


Turkey hunters are quick to place the blame elsewhere. They want to fill their limit in every state they travel to and expect mother nature to replenish all the birds, and maybe even add more!, without putting in any management effort themselves. Now this doesn't apply to all turkey hunters, but take a minute and think about how many you know that seriously get their hands dirty trying to help the turkey population where they hunt.

I've also witnessed a lot of ignorance in this thread in regards to wildlife management. It'd be worthwhile for a few of you to study up more on that topic before you start spouting off blame and assumptions.

You mean actually show some self restraint and keep an eye towards the future of our wildlife instead of killing everything legally possible? Your not asking for much are ya? It's much easier to just kill everything legally possible and then complain that it's the wildlife officials fault for letting us.