Reduced limit ?

[ImThere]

The whole zone thing is BS. That would just bring hunters from all over to where they have a higher limit. They will have to do it across the board and follow the hardest hit counties in decline. You cannot have a 1 bird limit across the east and west part of the state and have a 4 bird limit in middle Tn. That's is just foolish.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

 

[Bgoodman30]

The whole zone thing is BS. That would just bring hunters from all over to where they have a higher limit. They will have to do it across the board and follow the hardest hit counties in decline. You cannot have a 1 bird limit across the east and west part of the state and have a 4 bird limit in middle Tn. That's is just foolish.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

Definitely don't want a 1 bird limit anywhere in this state! I see where you are coming from but I don't think it would be that bad. Remember most hunters only kill 1 or 2 and they are not leaving the back 40. So again IMO it will be a nominal change. The hunters that normally kill 4 will travel like they always do but only a small percentage of hunters.

 

[Bgoodman30]

The whole zone thing is BS. That would just bring hunters from all over to where they have a higher limit. They will have to do it across the board and follow the hardest hit counties in decline. You cannot have a 1 bird limit across the east and west part of the state and have a 4 bird limit in middle Tn. That's is just foolish.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

Also just goes to show that reducing our limit is not the answer and other issues could arise..

 

[ImThere]

Couldn't agree more. It's not that decoys work every time, but they work extremely well on field birds that would more often than not live most if not all the season and breed tons of hens. In the first two weeks of the season what percentage of birds killed are killed with decoys? 25%? 50%?

In the first two weeks? more like 85-90 precent. IMHO

 

[Southern Sportsman]

I agree that some limit reductions or later opening may help marginally but I think it might be a feel good strategy. I want proof from other state agencies that reducing the limit has proven to restore populations and hunter success? Most folks only kill 2 or less anyways so what changes other than punishing the avid hunters...?

Like Mega said, when you kill them is likely more important than how many you kill, although it is obviously good to have some carry-over of adult gobblers from one season to the next. Having one of the most liberal limits in the country - that was set in 2006 when populations were at or near an all-time high - is just silly and it sends the wrong message during a time that turkeys are undeniably declining here as they are across the Southeast. If you want iron-clad, concrete proof that making X change will have and exact result, that's just not the way science works. Studies are ongoing, but the leading biologist tend to agree that there is a problem. You can read this for some good information. A few highlights:

Potential effects of spring season timing on male harvest and its relationship to population vigor are important considerations, especially in areas of low turkey densities, intense hunting pressure, high harvest rates, and fragmented landscapes (Vangilder 1992, Kurzejeski and Vangilder 1992, Stafford et al. 1997, Chamberlain et al. 2012). These concerns are based on observations that suggest insufficient vailability of adult male turkeys can detrimentally impact localized population productivity (Exum et al. 1987, Isabelle et al. 2016). Annual adult male survival can be relatively high in unhunted populations (Moore et al. 2008), yet most male mortality occurs during spring as a result of harvest with some additional mortality due to crippling loss during, or shortly after, the hunting season (Godwin et al. 1991, Wright and Vangilder 2000). Furthermore, most male harvest may be concentrated early in the hunting season under frameworks in which hunter access or opportunity is unrestricted (Miller et al. 1997b, Lehman et al. 2005). It is therefore important for managers to consider the timing of hunting seasons and harvest within the progression of the turkey breeding season. A relatively recent meta-analysis suggests most SEAFWA member states open spring turkey seasons early in the breeding season, prior to the predicted mean nest incubation initiation date (x¯ = 29.5 days prior; range 9–47 days prior; Whitaker et al. 2005). If male turkey abundance is greatly reduced due to high harvest rates, the combination of additive harvest concentrated early in the breeding season could result in an insufficient number of males remaining for copulation with females, thereby violating the assumption that spring turkey seasons do not impact reproduction.
. . . .
Effect of male harvest on turkey production remains a considerable knowledge gap. Yet, it is imprudent to ignore evidence which suggests high, early spring harvest (Exum et al. 1987) or insufficient adult male abundance (Isabelle et al. 2016) may locally suppress turkey productivity. In fact, many authors (Vangilder 1992, Kurzejeski and Vangilder 1992, Healy and Powell 2000) have warned about potential implications of high male turkey mortality on population productivity when it occurs early in the breeding season. While unquantified in turkeys, high, selective, or inappropriately-timed male harvest has been suggested to negatively impact other commercially or recreationally harvested taxa from cervids to crustaceans
(Saether et al. 2003, Sato and Goshima 2006, Milner et al. 2007) suggesting this theory is not unfounded. The long-term genotypic or phenotypic consequences of removing dominant males prior to their reproductive contribution are also unknown, but should be a concern of wise management (Fenberg and Roy 2008). Evaluation of the biological considerations associated with spring turkey season timing suggests hunting seasons delayed until peak nest initiation, defined as the mean date of initial nest initiation, should reduce illegal female harvest where it occurs (Norman et al. 2001a), while minimizing concerns about the potential effects of male harvest on productivity and sustainability of the resource (Table 3).
. . . .
Butler et al. (2015) demonstrated that a framework change that moved Mississippi's opening date earlier resulted in a subsequent decline in harvest per unit effort for a group of avid hunters. . . .

In Arkansas, a long-term decline in spring harvest reversed following a framework alteration that moved the spring season's opening date until after peak nest initiation. . . .

 

[prstide]

The whole zone thing is BS. That would just bring hunters from all over to where they have a higher limit. They will have to do it across the board and follow the hardest hit counties in decline. You cannot have a 1 bird limit across the east and west part of the state and have a 4 bird limit in middle Tn. That's is just foolish.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

But yet it's ok to have a 4 bird limit in areas of the state currently where the population can not sustain taking 4 birds for every hunter in the woods? Majority of people DO NOT NOR WILL THEY EVER SELF IMPOSE a lower limit unless it's put into law.
You proved my earlier point about zones with your comment because if you go back and read the rest of the sentence it said,"lower the limits based upon zones to keep the Region 2 hunters happy until those areas experience what other parts of the state already have so they will understand and stop the questioning" I totally agree with what you said—it would drive everyone to that area to hunt and then adversely affect the population. That's exactly what happens in other parts of the state already due to the asinine bag limit of 4 gobblers and the methods by which folks are allowed to hunt, otherwise, very hard to kill dominant birds early in the season during peak breeding.

 

[megalomaniac]

Majority of people DO NOT NOR WILL THEY EVER SELF IMPOSE a lower limit unless it's put into law.

Truer words have never been spoken

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[Boll Weevil]

Majority of people DO NOT NOR WILL THEY EVER SELF IMPOSE a lower limit unless it's put into law.

Truer words have never been spoken

Agree unless (maybe...possibly) it's on their own ground and they're interested in managing the resource. Personally, there were years I only killed 1 tom in an effort to manage what little I had on the farm. But generally I agree that most will have no interest in self-restriction.

 

[bobbuck]

The whole zone thing is BS. That would just bring hunters from all over to where they have a higher limit. They will have to do it across the board and follow the hardest hit counties in decline. You cannot have a 1 bird limit across the east and west part of the state and have a 4 bird limit in middle Tn. That's is just foolish.

You do realize that is exactly how Turkey seasons used to be 20 plus years ago and it worked great. There were believe it or not places in Tn you could not even kill a bird. I really don't care if they go to zones or not, but it would be the fairest way to reduce limits where they need to be and leave them alone where the do not need to be dropped.

See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

 

[ImThere]

You do realize that is exactly how Turkey seasons used to be 20 plus years ago and it worked great. There were believe it or not places in Tn you could not even kill a bird. I really don't care if they go to zones or not, but it would be the fairest way to reduce limits where they need to be and leave them alone where the do not need to be dropped.

I'm guessing it didn't work then so they changed it.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

 

[Southern Sportsman]

You do realize that is exactly how Turkey seasons used to be 20 plus years ago and it worked great. There were believe it or not places in Tn you could not even kill a bird. I really don't care if they go to zones or not, but it would be the fairest way to reduce limits where they need to be and leave them alone where the do not need to be dropped.

I'm guessing it didn't work then so they changed it.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

Wrong. Turkeys were expanding everywhere and populations reached all-time highs so they kept expanding seasons and raising limits. Now populations are dropping every year but many people don't want to give up a long season and high limits even though the population can't sustain it in many places.

 

[bloodtrailing]

You do realize that is exactly how Turkey seasons used to be 20 plus years ago and it worked great. There were believe it or not places in Tn you could not even kill a bird. I really don't care if they go to zones or not, but it would be the fairest way to reduce limits where they need to be and leave them alone where the do not need to be dropped.

I'm guessing it didn't work then so they changed it.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

That would fit your agenda so go with it. The current regs are not working.


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[AlabamaSwamper]

Limit could be 0 and I wouldn't break it

And I used to kill a limit every year and wouldn't kill 1/4 of the gobblers on my property.

Can't kill what isn't there.

 

[Bgoodman30]

The whole zone thing is BS. That would just bring hunters from all over to where they have a higher limit. They will have to do it across the board and follow the hardest hit counties in decline. You cannot have a 1 bird limit across the east and west part of the state and have a 4 bird limit in middle Tn. That's is just foolish.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

But yet it's ok to have a 4 bird limit in areas of the state currently where the population can not sustain taking 4 birds for every hunter in the woods? Majority of people DO NOT NOR WILL THEY EVER SELF IMPOSE a lower limit unless it's put into law.
You proved my earlier point about zones with your comment because if you go back and read the rest of the sentence it said,"lower the limits based upon zones to keep the Region 2 hunters happy until those areas experience what other parts of the state already have so they will understand and stop the questioning" I totally agree with what you said—it would drive everyone to that area to hunt and then adversely affect the population. That's exactly what happens in other parts of the state already due to the asinine bag limit of 4 gobblers and the methods by which folks are allowed to hunt, otherwise, very hard to kill dominant birds early in the season during peak breeding.

I think your overestimating the average TN turkey hunter. Most turkey hunters don't need to impose self limits they just don't have the time or skill to kill 4 anyways. Heck I've put in 8 days and only seen 3 fall not just from me.. Most hunters don't hunt 8 days in a season and they especially don't travel from their home base. Taking 4 toms in this state takes a lot of time and dedication when most folks are weekend warriors.

One thing we see can see from this years success is high pressure and harvest doesn't correlate to diminished success in the following seasons.. Until we can return to higher nest success not much is going to change...


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[bloodtrailing]

The whole zone thing is BS. That would just bring hunters from all over to where they have a higher limit. They will have to do it across the board and follow the hardest hit counties in decline. You cannot have a 1 bird limit across the east and west part of the state and have a 4 bird limit in middle Tn. That's is just foolish.


See you in a tree, Ricky
Tree Saddle Hunters_R_US on Tapatalk

I think your overestimating the average TN turkey hunter. Most turkey hunters don't need to impose self limits they just don't have the time or skill to kill 4 anyways. Heck I've put in 8 days and only seen 3 fall not just from me.. Most hunters don't hunt 8 days in a season and they especially don't travel from their home base. Taking 4 toms in this state takes a lot of time and dedication when most folks are weekend warriors.

One thing we see can see from this years success is high pressure and harvest doesn't correlate to diminished success in the following seasons.. Until we can return to higher nest success not much is going to change...


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Nest success is being impacted by hunting. Go read the post from today about it. Or just keep hammering that one nail of don't change anything unless it gives more time to hunt or more turkeys to kill.


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[TLRanger]

I sent my suggestion in to the commission:

1. Two bird limit
2. No hen killing, bearded or not
3. Four week season.....only one bird the first week
4. Open the season on April 10th each year.

oke:

 

[PickettSFHunter]

I would not be opposed to a no Jake rule like MS has. Youth still shoot them but not adults. Should theoretically get more hunters to fully ID the turkey before they pull the trigger.

 

[prstide]

I think your overestimating the average TN turkey hunter. Most turkey hunters don't need to impose self limits they just don't have the time or skill to kill 4 anyways. Heck I've put in 8 days and only seen 3 fall not just from me.. Most hunters don't hunt 8 days in a season and they especially don't travel from their home base. Taking 4 toms in this state takes a lot of time and dedication when most folks are weekend warriors.

One thing we see can see from this years success is high pressure and harvest doesn't correlate to diminished success in the following seasons.. Until we can return to higher nest success not much is going to change...


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Nest success is being impacted by hunting. Go read the post from today about it. Or just keep hammering that one nail of don't change anything unless it gives more time to hunt or more turkeys to kill.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

It's hard to overestimate the "average TN turkey hunter" when he posts pics on social media of himself with a dead gobbler and a full fan decoy in the background. That's my opinion of average. You're not seeing the big picture and one day I'm hopeful you will understand, it's not a singular reasoned issue but a combination of many that are contributing to the decline, before it's too late.