At this stage in the game we need to worry about the gobbler's just as much as the hens IMO. And I would love to see the plastic turkey and fans banned and he is right it would save thousands of gobblers.
I agree that we need to worry about the gobblers about as much as the hens.
Many years ago, when plastic turkeys and gobbler decoys first came on the scene, before I heard it wasn't sporting to experiment with them, I did quite a bit of experimenting with various types of decoys.
After several years, my conclusion was (at least for me) full-strut decoys were more a liability than an asset, and that was generally the case with all decoys. That's why I stopped using full-strut decoys, and rarely even a single setting (breeding) hen decoy. It's not that they don't work sometimes, but at least as often, they repel birds you might otherwise have had a chance.
Over the past few years, I have found one circumstance where I believe a turkey decoy is consistently more asset than liability. Do I personally need it? Absolutely not. But doing what I'm talking about in a second typically allows for increased opportunity to make a really clean head shot without getting a pellet in the breast, especially when I have a novice hunter with me doing the shooting.
The circumstance is having a good setup, before fly-down, and being able to place a sitting hen decoy in such a circumstance it
CANNOT be seen
before a strutting gobbler is already within good range. What typically happens, the gobbler will hang around a lot longer, working his way towards that "breeding" hen (in the "assumed" position). Sometimes they even put on a show and mate with the breeding (sitting) hen decoy.
Now, try the same thing with a more visible standing hen decoy, and more often than not, the old Tom hangs up out of range. He may gobble his head off, but he expects the hen to come to him, as nature intended.
As to the full-strut decoys, yes,
sometimes they work as advertised. As often or more often, they repel more longbeards than they attract. I could almost write a book on the various liabilities of using turkey decoys equaling or exceeding their assets. Most hunters have no idea how many good opportunities they blow just by distant turkeys seeing them placing or retrieving decoys.
Overall, I could care less whether the regs allow or disallow turkey decoys, but not for one second do I believe outlawing them would make a significant difference in the annual kill. It would just make a small difference regarding which hunters are killing those birds. But dead still ends up being dead.
Regs can only do so much.
They can do essentially nothing in addressing the biggest threats to wild turkeys thriving,
which, imo, #1 has now become raptor predation, particularly hawks annihilating young poults. Next, the ultimate evolving turkey predator is becoming the bald eagle, coming soon to a field near you.
As to the hunting regs, if we really want to help the turkey populations grow, here in TN we need to open the season at least a week later, and reduce the gobbler limit back to no more than two.
