Same old story... the "focal" group met and their solution was to manipulate the human part of the equation in Mississippi, too. Since it's never just one thing that influences wild turkey recruitment, they're going for the lower-hanging fruit and trying to justify it with research. Until broad-scale removal of nest predators takes place moving season dates around won't have much impact.
A case in point is the results of trapping around my farm. After two successive years of massive statewide harvest increases and living five minutes from one of the most heavily hunted WMAs, I have never seen nor heard as many mature gobblers compared to the last 10 years on my farm. Conservatively, there's double the number of longbeards heard on the limb around here now compared to pre-Covid.
Do I like the later opening? Not really. A mid-April opener presents a situation where you're typically working the hens with a tom to get him into gun range rather than calling to lone gobblers on the prowl.
Do I like the lower bag limit? Again, not really a fan. I learned turkey biology from the best in the business, IMO. If you know the history, Vernon Bevill, was the head of Mississippi WFP from 1987 to 1990. He earned his reputation in the wildlife community at his previous job as head of wild turkey management in South Carolina. He set turkey limits at 5 gobblers per spring season. The reason he told me that he set the limit so high was it would better reflect actual harvest numbers. Worked pretty well for South Carolina and Mississippi. Should be the same here in Tennessee, i.e. a little higher limit to more likely capture the harvest data of what's really happening. Sadly, some people don't quit pulling the trigger when they reach the limit. The other side of that coin of limiting out that wildlife managers are trying to manage is: Once a hunter reaches his/her limit, they'll be out of the woods. Not the case. I know a lot of people who limit out and start taking others with them to call up a few more and watch 'em flop.
