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Started by Missouri hunter, February 26, 2020, 11:49:53 AM
Quote from: jims on February 18, 2022, 05:06:49 PM........ what do you think about rifles legal in states like Wyoming and South Dakota during turkey season?
Quote from: RiverBuck on February 20, 2022, 12:58:33 PMI run the local turkey trot every year... but 100% against rape.Seriously, these type threads are a waste of time.
Quote from: GobbleNut on February 21, 2022, 09:11:52 AMRegardless of any of our individual thoughts and attitudes about reaping, I believe this issue will ultimately come down to a management decision within wildlife agencies as to how the use of gobbler decoys/fans in any form is impacting the wild turkey resource. We discuss at length the factors that are impacting wild turkey populations, but you rarely see anybody bringing up the impact that using male turkey representations has had over the last decade or two. Is it a coincidence that declines in turkey populations over the last ten/twenty years seems to be inversely related to the increase in male-turkey decoy and fan use? Personally, I am not so certain there is not a correlation there, and in fact, I would suggest it is a significant factor.As has been stated many times in this thread and others, there is absolutely no doubt that the percentage of gobblers being harvested in any population has significantly increased since the effectiveness of "male-turkey representations" came to light. That "discovery" is a relatively recent phenomenon in turkey hunting. Reaping, itself, is just a subset of the bigger problem of whether ANY sort of use of gobbler/jake decoys or fans should be allowed for spring gobbler hunting. Reaping is just the easiest target for criticism because of some perceived safety issue we have pinned on it. I would speculate that the increase in gobbler harvest since male-turkey representations became a fad is a significant factor in decreased gobbler numbers in a number of places. Not only that, but since a lot of that increased harvest is coming in the form of mature, perhaps dominant (i.e..."breeding"), gobblers in the population, the impact on breeding saturation of the hen population is not at all clear, and in turn, really should be being investigated more seriously as a potential limiting factor in turkey populations.Decades ago, the entire premise about spring gobbler hunting was that there would always be surplus gobblers that could be harvested out of any turkey population without impacting that population. That premise was, to a degree, based on the assumption that there would always be a certain percentage of the mature gobbler population that would not be susceptible to traditional hunting methods used at that time. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate that premise on a wide-spread basis simply because of the discovery of the effectiveness of male decoys and fanning...and make some needed adjustments.
Quote from: Number17 on February 21, 2022, 12:53:18 PMIf there is any indication that a percentage of hens are not being bred because there is a lack of gobblers, then taking steps to reduce the gobbler harvest (banning gobbler decoys) may be something to look at. As it stands, I'm not aware of a population that is lacking in males to service the females.