Alabama leading the way

[woodsman04]

Wouldn't bother me one bit with a fall off in license sales and less "funding" for the agency. Most of the agency money is likely made from deer, fish, and ducks.
I used to try and promote turkey hunting and get people involved. Part of our problem is the NWTF. They no longer do much about habitat and population although they say they do. It's all about raising money so their CEOs and presidents, and spokesmen and women can have a job and go hunting.

Turkey hunting the right way is a pure sport. It isn't elitist. It can be for anyone. Not everyone has trophy 140 class bucks to hunt. Not everyone has their own private duck hole or good lease in Arkansas. If the decoy hunters would take a step back and see that it is detrimental to the population, as well as unethical, we would be ok. I do not really care how any one hunts. Legal or illegal I don't give a crap. That's between you and the law and God.
What I can't stand is the decoy hunters that think it's ok, and think that the traditional folks are just out to get them and bashing them. No one is bashing the decoy folks. Just trying to talk you all up and get you to join forces to hunt the right way.

Just like we are all required to pass a drivers test to drive, I think every turkey hunter should be required to read "The Tenth Legion" before you hunt.

 

[hbg1]

If a reg was passed where I could only hunt with a recurve then I would have no issue and would learn to kill with that.

your example is the most worn out tired talking point used by the decoy lovers. And it still like before makes no sense

Not to you it doesn't but to me it does

 

[hbg1]

Loathe is a strong word, I agree. But their values and mine do not align even a little bit. I see their view as taking the easiest way possible, and diluting what is a pure form of hunting and molding it into a kill as quick and easily as possible shooting sport.

I see their tactics as not just detrimental, but degrading the roots of turkey hunting and more importantly doing serious damage to the future of the sport by teaching young hunters the wrong way and negatively impacting the flock that we all enjoy hunting.

I ask again, if you knew that removing a single tactic would save thousands and thousands of turkeys to breed and carry over why wouldn't you be in favor? Answer that....

Because there is a simpler and easier way.

 

[Setterman]

Not to you it doesn't but to me it does

I understand that there a groups of people who have no interest in learning how to hunt Turkeys. They just want to fill tags, post Facebook stories, and move on. That's becoming clearer and clearer with each passing season

Filling those tags as quickly and as easily as possible is far more important to those than stepping back and seeing the big picture. Who cares about the future as long as those tags get filled as easily as possible.

 

[hbg1]

To each his own if rules are followed, you nor I are God of turkey land

 

[TheLBLman]

I ask again, if you knew that removing a single tactic would save thousands and thousands of turkeys to breed and carry over why wouldn't you be in favor? Answer that....

How about we change the single tactic to single thing?
IMO, delaying the season opening by only 1 week would save more breeder Toms than anything to do with decoys, limits, or any methodology currently legal.
If the season is NOT open, no one is doing any of the "unethical" tactics?
Why are you so opposed to this?

Part of this issue is some have come to believe decoys are more effective than they really are. The issue is kinda like the old Bill Dance (and I love Bill Dance) fishing shows. He sometimes spent days on end trying to produce just enough video footage for his short fishing show, where he often only caught a half dozen bass on film. But then everyone would rush out to buy that "hot" lure they had just seen Bill Dance use to "tear them up" on TV.

It's not that decoys aren't extremely effective SOME of the time, but rather they're an overall liability as much or more of the time. We just don't see on TV all those times they not only don't work, but all those times decoys actually cost the users real opportunities the decoy use took away.

Most hunters don't even come close to realizing how many birds they "spook" just by placing & retrieving decoys. That's on top of the hunter typically making more unnatural sounds in the process of carrying & placing decoys. This causes many birds to simply fly off their roost going the other way, and the reason they never gobbled was because they saw or heard the person placing his decoy(s). All that on top of decoys just being something else to carry.

IMO, decoys are as much a gimmick as a crutch.
How do I know? Because over a decade ago I spent 2 1/2 seasons really experimenting with them.
They cost me more birds than they gained me.
That's just a fact.

For me, in 2 1/2 yrs, the "strutter" decoy only worked "as advertised" one time. I do admit none of my experiments were in big cattle pastures, but many were in 10-plus-acre hay fields. Many times, the strutter decoy just turned birds, some of which I would have killed had I not been using it. I finally stopped, in part because it just wasn't how I wanted to hunt (which is much like Setterman hunts), and because the decoys were costing me more than gaining me.

But I did learn one trick.
If I more or less "hide" a sitting hen decoy, then, AFTER I call up a Longbeard within range, he will often focus his attention on that sitting hen rather than be continuing to walk LOOKING for that hen. For that reason alone, I sometimes use this tactic mainly when I have a less experienced hunter with me, just so they can have more opportunity to get that perfect head shot, AND, see more up close strutting.
Again, the bird is called up to typically under 35 yds before he even sees the decoy.

If you try this tactic, you best be sure the Longbeard is within range before he sees it, because just as often, he will lock up at that moment, and come no closer. He may put on a great show, but he ends up walking away instead of closer. Same exact thing with the big stutter decoys, in that they repel as many or more than they attract. For me, strutter decoys would nearly always be more liability than asset.

Just open the season a week later, and we'll save more breeder birds, in part due to a lot less non-resident hunters coming to TN for no other reason than currently our season opens a week earlier than theirs.

So simple, and we have fewer hunters attacking other hunters for differences in opinion of how turkeys may be ethically hunted. We have similar conflict with duck hunters, only it may be just the opposite in that the decoy users think those not using decoys are hunting ducks unethicially.

 

[TheLBLman]

I understand that there a groups of people who have no interest in learning how to hunt Turkeys. They just want to fill tags, post Facebook stories, and move on. That's becoming clearer and clearer with each passing season

Filling those tags as quickly and as easily as possible is far more important to those than stepping back and seeing the big picture. Who cares about the future as long as those tags get filled as easily as possible.

I totally agree with you about this.
Just don't believe decoys are overall helping them much more than hurting them.
Also, if our season opened only a week later, to what extent decoys work, they work much less a week later, in part because they're harder for a turkey to see (due to fast-growing vegetation).

 

[Shanman]

I understand that there a groups of people who have no interest in learning how to hunt Turkeys. They just want to fill tags, post Facebook stories, and move on. That's becoming clearer and clearer with each passing season

Filling those tags as quickly and as easily as possible is far more important to those than stepping back and seeing the big picture. Who cares about the future as long as those tags get filled as easily as possible.

So I work with alot of young guys that love the outdoors, $60,000 bass boats......leases in Ohio and Kentucky.....Sitka clothing and all the expensive toys. In the woods or on the water at every opportunity, alot of us older guys use to be obsessed with it too. Something happened to us that hasn't happened to them yet.....maturity. Some folks didn't have a mentor or dad to show them the way, heck, I was one of them and it was all about the kill. Now not all young hunters/fishermen are like that and not all of us older folks have matured in our hobbies or pursuits in the outdoors. What I've noticed is what Setterman mentioned above, basically instant gratification and need for attention. Every season I ride their butts hard about decoys, bait, and 22 mags. A few will get red hot mad and some will actually stop and think. Most aren't up to date on what's happening with the turkey population, and they don't get it. For the thinkers it's like a light bulb comes on when you explain a few things to them and they will actually start asking questions, the others aren't listening to squat. Best thing we can do is to try and get hunters to think for a moment, either their going to listen or their not.

 

[Popcorn]

I'm just not a fan of pushing the season back, I've heard all my life that most hens are bred before the season opens. If true there's no biological reason for pushing it back. Now outlawing male turkey decoys and tents, there's a step in the right direction. There would be alot more gobblers left alive at the end of the season.

most of the young hens hatched last year have not yet reached egg production and many will not be fertilized the first mating or so. Hens will not normally mate till ovum production has began. These hens plus re-nests where a hens first nest was destroyed before she went broody do require late mating. a single successful mating may be good for a nesting but not a season.

 

[TheLBLman]

Not only is what Popcorn stated how it is, but also, most years, the majority of the hens are young & sexually immature during the beginning of our turkey season.

 

[poorhunter]

How about we change the single tactic to single thing?
IMO, delaying the season opening by only 1 week would save more breeder Toms than anything to do with decoys, limits, or any methodology currently legal.
If the season is NOT open, no one is doing any of the "unethical" tactics?
Why are you so opposed to this?

Part of this issue is some have come to believe decoys are more effective than they really are. The issue is kinda like the old Bill Dance (and I love Bill Dance) fishing shows. He sometimes spent days on end trying to produce just enough video footage for his short fishing show, where he often only caught a half dozen bass on film. But then everyone would rush out to buy that "hot" lure they had just seen Bill Dance use to "tear them up" on TV.

It's not that decoys aren't extremely effective SOME of the time, but rather they're an overall liability as much or more of the time. We just don't see on TV all those times they not only don't work, but all those times decoys actually cost the users real opportunities the decoy use took away.

Most hunters don't even come close to realizing how many birds they "spook" just by placing & retrieving decoys. That's on top of the hunter typically making more unnatural sounds in the process of carrying & placing decoys. This causes many birds to simply fly off their roost going the other way, and the reason they never gobbled was because they saw or heard the person placing his decoy(s). All that on top of decoys just being something else to carry.

IMO, decoys are as much a gimmick as a crutch.
How do I know? Because over a decade ago I spent 2 1/2 seasons really experimenting with them.
They cost me more birds than they gained me.
That's just a fact.

For me, in 2 1/2 yrs, the "strutter" decoy only worked "as advertised" one time. I do admit none of my experiments were in big cattle pastures, but many were in 10-plus-acre hay fields. Many times, the strutter decoy just turned birds, some of which I would have killed had I not been using it. I finally stopped, in part because it just wasn't how I wanted to hunt (which is much like Setterman hunts), and because the decoys were costing me more than gaining me.

But I did learn one trick.
If I more or less "hide" a sitting hen decoy, then, AFTER I call up a Longbeard within range, he will often focus his attention on that sitting hen rather than be continuing to walk LOOKING for that hen. For that reason alone, I sometimes use this tactic mainly when I have a less experienced hunter with me, just so they can have more opportunity to get that perfect head shot, AND, see more up close strutting.
Again, the bird is called up to typically under 35 yds before he even sees the decoy.

If you try this tactic, you best be sure the Longbeard is within range before he sees it, because just as often, he will lock up at that moment, and come no closer. He may put on a great show, but he ends up walking away instead of closer. Same exact thing with the big stutter decoys, in that they repel as many or more than they attract. For me, strutter decoys would nearly always be more liability than asset.

Just open the season a week later, and we'll save more breeder birds, in part due to a lot less non-resident hunters coming to TN for no other reason than currently our season opens a week earlier than theirs.

So simple, and we have fewer hunters attacking other hunters for differences in opinion of how turkeys may be ethically hunted. We have similar conflict with duck hunters, only it may be just the opposite in that the decoy users think those not using decoys are hunting ducks unethicially.

I respectfully disagree that decoys work less than they don't work especially with field birds early in the season. I have very limited personal experience with decoys but as Ive said before I've talked to and heard talk of a lot of hunters that don't think it is possible to kill turkeys without decoys or corn. If decoys "only" work 25% of the time on field birds that is an astronomical increase in success over non decoy use. Even if outlawing decoy use doesn't have a high positive effect on turkey numbers I still think it's an unfair advantage that hunters should disdain. I've never fed wildlife so I don't know this for sure, but I don't think turkeys eat much corn during the spring season since there's a lot of food around by then.

 

[woodsman04]

Baiting is so over rated for turkeys. During spring they search for the best breeding/nesting/brooding areas. Insects are the only thing turkey poults eat. So the hens go to nest in good bugging areas.

I mean yea, wild turkeys love agricultural grain. But it isn't near as effective of killing method as a full strut decoy in a cow pasture.

 

[hbg1]

How about we change the single tactic to single thing?
IMO, delaying the season opening by only 1 week would save more breeder Toms than anything to do with decoys, limits, or any methodology currently legal.
If the season is NOT open, no one is doing any of the "unethical" tactics?
Why are you so opposed to this?

Part of this issue is some have come to believe decoys are more effective than they really are. The issue is kinda like the old Bill Dance (and I love Bill Dance) fishing shows. He sometimes spent days on end trying to produce just enough video footage for his short fishing show, where he often only caught a half dozen bass on film. But then everyone would rush out to buy that "hot" lure they had just seen Bill Dance use to "tear them up" on TV.

It's not that decoys aren't extremely effective SOME of the time, but rather they're an overall liability as much or more of the time. We just don't see on TV all those times they not only don't work, but all those times decoys actually cost the users real opportunities the decoy use took away.

Most hunters don't even come close to realizing how many birds they "spook" just by placing & retrieving decoys. That's on top of the hunter typically making more unnatural sounds in the process of carrying & placing decoys. This causes many birds to simply fly off their roost going the other way, and the reason they never gobbled was because they saw or heard the person placing his decoy(s). All that on top of decoys just being something else to carry.

IMO, decoys are as much a gimmick as a crutch.
How do I know? Because over a decade ago I spent 2 1/2 seasons really experimenting with them.
They cost me more birds than they gained me.
That's just a fact.

For me, in 2 1/2 yrs, the "strutter" decoy only worked "as advertised" one time. I do admit none of my experiments were in big cattle pastures, but many were in 10-plus-acre hay fields. Many times, the strutter decoy just turned birds, some of which I would have killed had I not been using it. I finally stopped, in part because it just wasn't how I wanted to hunt (which is much like Setterman hunts), and because the decoys were costing me more than gaining me.

But I did learn one trick.
If I more or less "hide" a sitting hen decoy, then, AFTER I call up a Longbeard within range, he will often focus his attention on that sitting hen rather than be continuing to walk LOOKING for that hen. For that reason alone, I sometimes use this tactic mainly when I have a less experienced hunter with me, just so they can have more opportunity to get that perfect head shot, AND, see more up close strutting.
Again, the bird is called up to typically under 35 yds before he even sees the decoy.

If you try this tactic, you best be sure the Longbeard is within range before he sees it, because just as often, he will lock up at that moment, and come no closer. He may put on a great show, but he ends up walking away instead of closer. Same exact thing with the big stutter decoys, in that they repel as many or more than they attract. For me, strutter decoys would nearly always be more liability than asset.

Just open the season a week later, and we'll save more breeder birds, in part due to a lot less non-resident hunters coming to TN for no other reason than currently our season opens a week earlier than theirs.

So simple, and we have fewer hunters attacking other hunters for differences in opinion of how turkeys may be ethically hunted. We have similar conflict with duck hunters, only it may be just the opposite in that the decoy users think those not using decoys are hunting ducks unethicially.

Yes, someone gets it

 

[timberjack86]

How about we change the single tactic to single thing?
IMO, delaying the season opening by only 1 week would save more breeder Toms than anything to do with decoys, limits, or any methodology currently legal.
If the season is NOT open, no one is doing any of the "unethical" tactics?
Why are you so opposed to this?

Part of this issue is some have come to believe decoys are more effective than they really are. The issue is kinda like the old Bill Dance (and I love Bill Dance) fishing shows. He sometimes spent days on end trying to produce just enough video footage for his short fishing show, where he often only caught a half dozen bass on film. But then everyone would rush out to buy that "hot" lure they had just seen Bill Dance use to "tear them up" on TV.

It's not that decoys aren't extremely effective SOME of the time, but rather they're an overall liability as much or more of the time. We just don't see on TV all those times they not only don't work, but all those times decoys actually cost the users real opportunities the decoy use took away.

Most hunters don't even come close to realizing how many birds they "spook" just by placing & retrieving decoys. That's on top of the hunter typically making more unnatural sounds in the process of carrying & placing decoys. This causes many birds to simply fly off their roost going the other way, and the reason they never gobbled was because they saw or heard the person placing his decoy(s). All that on top of decoys just being something else to carry.

IMO, decoys are as much a gimmick as a crutch.
How do I know? Because over a decade ago I spent 2 1/2 seasons really experimenting with them.
They cost me more birds than they gained me.
That's just a fact.

For me, in 2 1/2 yrs, the "strutter" decoy only worked "as advertised" one time. I do admit none of my experiments were in big cattle pastures, but many were in 10-plus-acre hay fields. Many times, the strutter decoy just turned birds, some of which I would have killed had I not been using it. I finally stopped, in part because it just wasn't how I wanted to hunt (which is much like Setterman hunts), and because the decoys were costing me more than gaining me.

But I did learn one trick.
If I more or less "hide" a sitting hen decoy, then, AFTER I call up a Longbeard within range, he will often focus his attention on that sitting hen rather than be continuing to walk LOOKING for that hen. For that reason alone, I sometimes use this tactic mainly when I have a less experienced hunter with me, just so they can have more opportunity to get that perfect head shot, AND, see more up close strutting.
Again, the bird is called up to typically under 35 yds before he even sees the decoy.

If you try this tactic, you best be sure the Longbeard is within range before he sees it, because just as often, he will lock up at that moment, and come no closer. He may put on a great show, but he ends up walking away instead of closer. Same exact thing with the big stutter decoys, in that they repel as many or more than they attract. For me, strutter decoys would nearly always be more liability than asset.

Just open the season a week later, and we'll save more breeder birds, in part due to a lot less non-resident hunters coming to TN for no other reason than currently our season opens a week earlier than theirs.

So simple, and we have fewer hunters attacking other hunters for differences in opinion of how turkeys may be ethically hunted. We have similar conflict with duck hunters, only it may be just the opposite in that the decoy users think those not using decoys are hunting ducks unethicially.

So your basically saying the swarms of new age hunters that tag out each year on Facebook could do it without decoys? The guys who reap, and use strutters? That these same people could set up and call one into the gun day after day and then tag out? The decoys and the fans are hurting them? They could tag out quicker if they just used there inherited traditional skills?

 

[hbg1]

I respectfully disagree that decoys work less than they don't work especially with field birds early in the season. I have very limited personal experience with decoys but as Ive said before I've talked to and heard talk of a lot of hunters that don't think it is possible to kill turkeys without decoys or corn. If decoys "only" work 25% of the time on field birds that is an astronomical increase in success over non decoy use. Even if outlawing decoy use doesn't have a high positive effect on turkey numbers I still think it's an unfair advantage that hunters should disdain. I've never fed wildlife so I don't know this for sure, but I don't think turkeys eat much corn during the spring season since there's a lot of food around by then.

Personal experience is the best way to be informed enough to have a formulated opinion other than actual studies conducted by professionals under normal conditions, talk is cheap

 

[TheLBLman]

So your basically saying the swarms of new age hunters that tag out each year on Facebook could do it without decoys? The guys who reap, and use strutters? That these same people could set up and call one into the gun day after day and then tag out? The decoys and the fans are hurting them? They could tag out quicker if they just used there inherited traditional skills?

I'm saying these particular people brag (and exaggerate) their "successes" more than they talk about their failures. Yes, many of them would "tag out" very quickly, with or without decoys, as their #1 goal is to "tag out" and get recognition on Facebook, etc. They also don't post how many their birds are killed in field with a .22 rifle, and/or from a truck, and/or just over a corn pile, with our without decoys.

Many these same desperately needing recognition people are tagging out in the first week over a corn pile, never mind it's illegal, it is very widespread. Interestingly, corn is not nearly such an attractant by mid-April, after the average daily temps are higher, more insects are available, clover and other plants become prime food sources for turkeys. Corn, as well as decoys, seem to attract best only in the 1st 10 days of our early-opening TN turkey season.

Again, want to save a lot more breeder Toms and increase nesting success?
Single best and most easily enforced rule change is to just open our season 1 week later.

I have very limited personal experience with decoys but as I've said before I've talked to and heard talk of a lot of hunters that don't think it is possible to kill turkeys without decoys or corn. If decoys "only" work 25% of the time on field birds that is an astronomical increase in success over non decoy use.

Those most bent out of shape about the use of decoys are mostly upset because they've not personally seen just how USING decoys so often repels rather than attract turkeys.

What I'm trying to say is that while decoys may in fact work 25% of the time, they may also absolutely cost you a bird 25% of the time, when you would have killed that bird if you had not been using a decoy.

Decoys are pretty much a wash, overall.

Also suspect many we see "marketing" them, prefer not lugging them around when they're not being filmed. I can see how it is easer to film a "hunt" and a kill via using a decoy.

Anything, that causes you to expose yourself to unseen distant turkeys, and that can be either thru sight or sound (such as placing a decoy at dawn, not realizing turkeys are roosted nearby), more often than not, blows your opportunity for that particular setup.

I dare say that someone like Setterman, if forced to lug around & use decoys for an entire season, would come to scorn decoys more for their liability than their being unethical. The use of decoys has been so successfully "marketed", than even those who have never used them seem to think they work exactly as advertised. Sometimes, they do.

 

[Newt]

So your basically saying the swarms of new age hunters that tag out each year on Facebook could do it without decoys? The guys who reap, and use strutters? That these same people could set up and call one into the gun day after day and then tag out? The decoys and the fans are hurting them? They could tag out quicker if they just used there inherited traditional skills?

Well said, same thing in my neck of the woods fellers that couldn't kill a gobbler in a pen now are killing a limit or more in the first few days of season crawling behind a fan they have the videos to prove exactly how the whole thing went down. Just because it's legal don't make it right, I reckon it's legal for a man to take a dump in the woman's bathroom now but you want catch me doing that, same way I feel about fans, strutters, and reaping lol

 

[TheLBLman]

Just because it's legal don't make it right, I reckon it's legal for a man to take a dump in the woman's bathroom now but you want catch me doing that, same way I feel about fans, strutters, and reaping lol

Legalities & ethics are often contradictory, and I certainly agree with you about this.
Also keep in mind any "law" is often only as good as its enforcement.
From an enforcement standpoint, a closed season is generally easier to enforce than any of the other things we might prefer to be illegal. If anyone is observed turkey hunting the week before the season opens, that is much easier to catch, and successfully prosecute.

Despite my comments about decoys in general (about them not being nearly as effective as most seem to think), I would like to see the tactic of "fanning" or "reaping" made illegal. But my thinking is more from a safety perspective.

 

[Newt]

Legalities & ethics are often contradictory, and I certainly agree with you about this.
Also keep in mind any "law" is often only as good as its enforcement.
From an enforcement standpoint, a closed season is generally easier to enforce than any of the other things we might prefer to be illegal. If anyone is observed turkey hunting the week before the season opens, that is much easier to catch, and successfully prosecute.

Despite my comments about decoys in general (about them not being nearly as effective as most seem to think), I would like to see the tactic of "fanning" or "reaping" made illegal. But my thinking is more from a safety perspective.

Yes I agree LBLman i think that's a great option I just want to be able to hunt wild turkeys for years to come whatever it takes just like everyone here. I don't wanna see it spiral out of control like the grouse has around here non existent nearly.

 

[ruger7mag]

Guys I work with and a few friends use strutter decoys. One of them said last year that 10 toms saw his strutter decoy, 8 of them died. I fully trust this guy too. The guys I know who use them have way more than 25% success with them.