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today's TFWC Meeting
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<blockquote data-quote="Andy S." data-source="post: 5061090" data-attributes="member: 131"><p>Managing turkeys by harvest numbers is a very slippery slope IMO, and throwing caution to the wind. Arkansas is the prime example of what not to do. In the late 90s and early 2000s, they were on fire (<em>for AR</em>), just like TN and most States in the South were. Turkeys gobbling everywhere, seen everywhere, the hunters were happy and no one thought we could kill enough to ever hurt the resource. Then, they had consecutive years of bad hatches, while keeping the liberal limits in place and it eventually caught up with them. It got to the point a decade later where they had to make drastic season changes, reducing the season length, the bag limit, eliminating jake harvest, etc. The hunting experience was dire enough that it resulted in a lot of AR residents traveling to neighboring states to find an enjoyable spring turkey hunt. We should learn from their mistakes and not walk off the same cliff. Here is their historical statewide harvest data for discussion sake. Blue line total harvest, orange line adult gobbler harvest. Easy to see when jakes were made illegal around 2010. Notice how fat and happy everyone was around 2000, then how miserable and sad the same bunch was just 10 years later. Today, AR has some of the most conservation spring seasons around, because they had to start managing the resource, for the future of the resource, and letting profit and hunter satisfaction fall where they may.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]69582[/ATTACH]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Andy S., post: 5061090, member: 131"] Managing turkeys by harvest numbers is a very slippery slope IMO, and throwing caution to the wind. Arkansas is the prime example of what not to do. In the late 90s and early 2000s, they were on fire ([I]for AR[/I]), just like TN and most States in the South were. Turkeys gobbling everywhere, seen everywhere, the hunters were happy and no one thought we could kill enough to ever hurt the resource. Then, they had consecutive years of bad hatches, while keeping the liberal limits in place and it eventually caught up with them. It got to the point a decade later where they had to make drastic season changes, reducing the season length, the bag limit, eliminating jake harvest, etc. The hunting experience was dire enough that it resulted in a lot of AR residents traveling to neighboring states to find an enjoyable spring turkey hunt. We should learn from their mistakes and not walk off the same cliff. Here is their historical statewide harvest data for discussion sake. Blue line total harvest, orange line adult gobbler harvest. Easy to see when jakes were made illegal around 2010. Notice how fat and happy everyone was around 2000, then how miserable and sad the same bunch was just 10 years later. Today, AR has some of the most conservation spring seasons around, because they had to start managing the resource, for the future of the resource, and letting profit and hunter satisfaction fall where they may. [ATTACH type="full" alt="AR_harvest.JPG"]69582[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]
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