buckpasser
Senior Member
I know and I know.
Welcome Guest!
If you stop and think about it…
- Thread starter buckpasser
- Start date
I know and I know.
buckpasser
Senior Member
My point is, we can’t do much about a lot of the things that are actually effecting turkey populations. Meanwhile the state has chosen to address imaginary ones.
buckpasser
Senior Member
A legend.
Katalee
Senior Member
Most hay cutting around me doesn't happen till June.
I only know if 2 maybe 3 hayfields around me. I never really see them deep enough to hide a quail nest. Much less a turkey. I bet they may have some nest off the side of the fields. It’s clear cut timber land around most. Grown up stuff of different ages.
Gadget
Senior Member
You`re saying a man whose living and paycheck rely on haycutting, breaking land, and farming, should just wait so you might hunt for your fun and entertainment? Open your eyes and step into the real world. Or maybe just donate your paycheck to him.
Lol...I was just saying in another thread that a lot of turkey hunters make the mistake of thinking other people care about a turkey.
Some folks care about a roof over their head, food on the table, clothes on their back, the needs of their family, and making a living. Many out there don`t care about the needs of others, as long as they have a critter to hunt. My thoughts about people like that can`t be spoken on a family friendly website.
Gadget
Senior Member
Along the same lines in another thread where someone thought logging companies should change the way they do buisness cutting timber to cater to hunters and wild turkey
kayaksteve
Senior Member
I’m not a die hard turkey hunter. I usually stay pretty quiet in these discussions because I know there’s alot of people that are very passionate about this subject and take this stuff alot more personally than me. I do turkey hunt every year and enjoy it and most years I’ll luck up atleast once and shoot one. I think a large majority of the turkey problems are habitat and predators along with several other things. I think as hunters and conservationists we would love to see some logging and farming practices changed and development to slow WAY down. But us or the DNR has no control over 95% percent of that in the state because it’s on private land. Even if they could perfectly manage every inch of public land it would still be only a small percentage of the state. Turkey numbers are for sure dropping (or just fluctuating). In my mind the only option the DNR has is to cut seasons and limits some or let us continue to shoot out the population and see if they recover on their on or not. I think this is a tough one with no easy solution and no matter what the DNR get beat up for either “not doing anything to save our turkeys” if numbers continue to drop or “cutting season and limits for no reason” if they do recover.
The timber lands around here have turkey. Private lands around here have turkey. The turkey numbers here are down from the hay day but seems to be rising here now. He turkey here move from area to area. This year I watched 4 gobblers fly up. Looked roosted. Before it was over they pitched in different directions and flew I know a mile different way. The range of a turkey is way greater than a deer. Couple days later 4 birds appeared on my camera in that area again. That night I watched as they separated by miles in moments.
Pig Predator
Useles Billy’s Fishel Hog Killer ?
I see a bunch of @dang turkeys everywhere i go up here in the hay fields. Counted 35 just the other day in my back yard in the woods.
buckpasser
Senior Member
My point with this thread isn’t logging or farming or any of that. It’s the stupidity of making a change on a later opener with no proof that it would or will help a darn thing. DNR has done good by not allowing hen harvest, not allowing a fall season with a spring season, and now just recently putting a daily limit cap on them. The season limit is really neither here nor there to me, because two is good season. Just can’t stand the date change with no cause and no reason except TD believes it might help. So dumb.
Pig Predator
Useles Billy’s Fishel Hog Killer ?
May be to give them more time to breed? Just spit ballin here....
buckpasser
Senior Member
That it will. We could stop deer season until Feb too. That would help them have an easier go at it. I thought the idea was to hunt them during breeding season?
herb mcclure
Senior Member
My understanding for the later season opening, is so the dominant gobblers who does the main breeding of the hens, will live a few days longer before some of us bloodthirsty gobbler killers kill him off, and before the hens have a chance who have chosen him to breed with. If that happens, then a dominance peck-of-order, starts all over again.
Wild Turkeys live by a peck-of-order, both hens and gobblers, and they choose their mates by establishing their dominance. We hunters interfere with their mating when hunting at this critical time, especially in this declined population.
Wild Turkeys live by a peck-of-order, both hens and gobblers, and they choose their mates by establishing their dominance. We hunters interfere with their mating when hunting at this critical time, especially in this declined population.
buckpasser
Senior Member
Absolutely no disrespect meant here Mr Herb, but where your are vs where I am (both in GA), are on vastly different time lines. The season will now come in at about the right time for you and your turkeys. Well, actually yours likely still won’t be breeding too much, but my season will be opening ridiculously late. All that you just stated came from the turkey doc and is an UNPROVEN theory. Turkeys have done well for a long time with the old season dates. They are about to be trending up again IMO, because that’s just what they do.
herb mcclure
Senior Member
What I just stated has come from 65 years of studding and hunting wild turkeys. No turkey doc's involved. I have lived with wild turkeys for many years, just like Joe Hutto and a longbow Dave, who comes on the forum here from Wisconsin.
Not disagreeing with you about your mating season coming earlythan the mountains.
This later season were you are living, won't hurt your turkeys there at all, its the turkeys hunters who don' t want to accept giving up a change.
Not disagreeing with you about your mating season coming earlythan the mountains.
This later season were you are living, won't hurt your turkeys there at all, its the turkeys hunters who don' t want to accept giving up a change.
buckpasser
Senior Member
I’m not the world’s best turkey hunter, but I’m getting close to 30 years in this turkey hunting game and I manage wildlife for a living. No one has ever stated that killing Toms (not hens) too early has hurt their overall population until the turkey doc did it as far as I know. No one including him has proved that changing that will help anything at all.
My original point still leads me to ask this simple question; Is the population higher in South Georgia than North? Is the population higher in South Alabama than North? If the answer is no, the theory is dead. If the answer is yes, I’d like to hear about it and I’ll keep my mouth shut.
Whit90
Senior Member
@buckpasser I have never hunting South GA, but I have spent a lot of time hunting the North East part of the sate and the numbers are for sure low there. I think what this all boils down to is that there is no state wide solution and unfortunately the state seems to want to manage it that way (the whole state as opposed to regions).
You probably know this, but last year the antler restrictions on GA WMAs changed from having rules for each individual WMA (some had the same rules) to being the same across the board. I asked Charlie Killmaster what the reason was for the change and he told me that people were complaining about the different WMAs having differing rules, and that people were were getting confused. So the antler restrictions were literally changed to be the same across all of the WMAs to eliminate confusion. I don't agree that the state should have made this change to appease some people out there that cant simply read the regs to the WMA that they are going to hunt.
My point is that the state should be managed regionally when it comes to regulations, but it seems that the state is adamant to do so because its simply easier to make state wide rules so our stupid residents don't get confused.
Its sad.
You probably know this, but last year the antler restrictions on GA WMAs changed from having rules for each individual WMA (some had the same rules) to being the same across the board. I asked Charlie Killmaster what the reason was for the change and he told me that people were complaining about the different WMAs having differing rules, and that people were were getting confused. So the antler restrictions were literally changed to be the same across all of the WMAs to eliminate confusion. I don't agree that the state should have made this change to appease some people out there that cant simply read the regs to the WMA that they are going to hunt.
My point is that the state should be managed regionally when it comes to regulations, but it seems that the state is adamant to do so because its simply easier to make state wide rules so our stupid residents don't get confused.
Its sad.
Last edited:
Gaswamp
Senior Member
I would say the numbers are probably lower overall in the Mountains. Some places in South georiga have good numbers, some not so much. I have often thought that land fragmentation is hurting Turkeys in certain areas of the state, but the Natl Forest in North Georgia that would not b the case. I would imagine there it would be more land diversity
