Be careful next spring if you are going to Florida

[kingfish]

There is a section on the FWC website that shows a county by county synopsis of all the cases the agents write during the spring gobbler season. The amount of baiting violations during spring gobbler is unreal, especially on public land. Lots of "Outfitters" got busted for baiting as well as a ton of individuals. Paying 1500.00 (or more) to kill an Osceola gobbler and then losing your equipment as well as the bird, plus all the fines involved has got to be a nightmare. There was even a land owner who baited an area he had leased to a group of hunters without them knowing about it. Wasn't being mean, just wanted the hunters to be successful because they had payed a bunch of money to hunt the land. Moral of this is if you are planning to come to Florida, do your due diligence now so there are no surprises. It can get expensive real quick !!!

 

[BASS1FUN]

Guess I’ll be saving my money, contacted a few outfitters and they never responded back looks like I’ll never knock an Osceola’s head off before the JESUS calls me home

 

[bullgator]

They do their courting in my back yard every springtime.

 

[Dupree]

When I hunted the southern zone opener in 2020 it surprised me as to how many people are hunting down there. I know the public gets crazy, but every piece of woods and orange grove big enough to have a turkey hiding there were trucks parked. We were hunting with a “guide” (if you could call him that) that would take us from property to property (most of them were 15-40 acres). He would sit in the truck while we walked the perimeter of the property looking for and trying to strike birds. We had multiple run ins with other people. One spot I walked up on a corn feeder, I turned around and walked out. I told him about the feeder and his response was “you only have to be 100 yards away from it, I think it’s probably empty now”. We got lucky and both killed birds the second afternoon and we drove straight home after cleaning the birds and getting a quick shower. If I ever return it will be with my son when he gets a little older, and it will be done so with a reputable outfitter who has large contiguous acres (I know that’s not gonna be cheap).

 

[buckpasser]

Sadly, the Osceola thing is just a racket anyway. I wish real science would step up and admit the truth about “subspecies”, “hybrids”, and where they do and don’t exist, as opposed to NWTF science. There is nothing south FL has to offer that a large portion of the southeast can’t accommodate, except a man made certificate.

 

[Gut_Pile]

Feeder in a field, hut and strutter at a ranged 101 yards from the feeder is a very popular way for outfitters to get folks their birds