Not many where I hunt either!!
Always good to hear positive observations!
A lot of the data I've seen suggests that opening the season in early April is 2-3 weeks too early due to interrupting the peak of nest initiation. I'm not a biologist but the argument is pretty convincing and I haven't seen much of an argument against delaying the opener.
I have information from a reliable source that TWRA just completed a 7 year study that showed no impact from a delayed opener on the turkey hatch or poult recruitment. This study wasn't completed until after they decided to change the season dates.
Where was the study based? Was it a state that historically has had a later opener or a state that delayed their opener at least 7 years ago? Hey I'd love to hunt in cooler weather and all of us would love turkey season to open sooner after small game season ends. But something surely has to change because all the Southeastern states are in bad shape with turkey numbers.
The study was actually done here in TN , 6 years worth on various areas . Showed that the delayed areas in TN had no gain in reproductive success over non delayed Weather and predators seem to have the biggest impact. The last 3 years have been dry and we have had great hatches without a delay and with the delay this season. I am sure time will give us more Information .
I can't remember go back and look at the 22 turkey regulations and it tells which counties were under study to see if a delay helped. They all opened two weeks after the rest of the state. I am sure someone can name them . They had 1 year to wrap up the findings but commission decided to delay the season before the results were released. Those results were released after the vote to delay the season for all of the state by two weeks. Hatches have been great all over the southeast the last few years, I have read several articles on it. Hopefully the good weather continues and the hatches will follow.
Oh ok I was unaware that the season was delayed 2 weeks in a handful of counties in TN. I moved from TN 7 years ago and live in SC now.
Your DNR is a bit biased as they are buddy buddy with Chamberlain and his dominant gobbler theory. They have a little data showing poult recruitment was better on a non-hunted site (Savannah River Site) and that is it. That data needs to be replicated on other non-hunted sites because other states have research showing delayed openers DID NOT help with poult recruitment. But what if it is only NON-HUNTED sites that help with poult recruitment? Maybe we should just not hunt them at all! At times I think that is what some want.
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.
I hunted as a guest years ago on a lowcountry club. Studied aerials, carried a climber, and found a spot for the evening hunt. Saw a basket racked 8 and several does and when we all got back to camp and compared notes the guys asked me, "Why didn't you shoot the buck?" My reply was he just wasn't what I was looking for.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
At least they admit it, that's rare here. Most of them swear they're accomplishing something.
I'm so glad to see you weren't blinded by that powerpoint presentation and are able to use sound reasoning!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
