Yea the SRS was not much better at all. If I remember correctly it was 35% poult recruitment success there vs 22% statewide. But they also did no predator control in that area, no burns, no habitat improvement at all. All they did was just prohibit hunting.
They claimed to not be proposing anything, just presenting data, but it was quite clear they believed in delaying the opener. Nothing was presented to support a theory that delaying the opener would not help things to let us make our own decision and I didn't even know those studies existed until reading this thread.
One other thing is the issue of baiting deer. South Carolina is probably 2nd to Texas as being the "Pay $2k for a hunt club and shoot at a pile of corn" capitol of America. By mid September half of Iowa's corn harvest is laying on the dirt here.
There are numerous scientific articles discussing the development of aflatoxin in corn at high enough levels to kill young turkeys. And the timing of the corn piles starting in SC falls right in line with it not only being warm enough to rot, but also the poults still being young enough to be affected by aflatoxin. In addition to the rotting, it also props up a population of known nest predators. Racoons. They love a good corn pile.
I know this is anecdotal, but a couple years after bait was legalized in the upstate regions, that part of the state started seeing its turkey population sharply decline.
South Carolina has a 3 month rifle season, almost 4 months in the lowcountry on private land. I mean, if with a 3 to 4 month rifle season you still need to dump 200# of corn on the ground to kill a deer... find something else to do. Hunting isn't for you
Thx
