Gobbler Nation

What do you think members?? I know alot of States still do not have a Fall Turkey Season. I have a feeling turkey hunters in States like Mississippi would welcome even a 1 week Fall Season. New York is down from 6 weeks to just 2 weeks and the take cut from 2 birds to just 1 turkey and New Jersey has a 1 week Fall turkey season . It would probably get more young people out as well . Your thoughts on this.....

I wouldn't mind a week or two of gobblers only fall season. Not a big fan of hens being legal. But I've hunted states that allow hens to be killed in the fall and the populations don't seem to suffer any. But here in the South out numbers have been declining for a while now. The killing of hens surely wouldn't help reverse that trend. Another issue I have with a fall season is the fact that a lot of the birds killed are 2 to 4 months old. Just does't sound like something I'd be interested in seeing happen around here.

I could see a fall season for all 49 states but like guesswho said would only like to see them impose a gobbler only harvest.

You're preaching to the choir. Go post on a deer hunting forum and work it out with them. Get 'er did!

I'm against it here in GA. Too many deer hunters and too long of a deer firearms season for it to work as almost every deer hunter has an opportunity at a turkey at some point in the deer season. Our turkey numbers would suffer drastically.

^ yup...corn and rifles all year long would be terrible on our population.

Jamey, that's pretty much SCDNR's take on it. Mine, too. I get enough of it in the spring and like to small bird hunt during the fall/winter with my dogs. And as someone on this board said at another site, "shoot lost baby turkeys??" Besides with everyone in this state complaining of low numbers, I don't think killing turks during a fall season would increase the population. Gil

So there's a difference between shooting lost baby turkeys and spring love struck dumb 2 year olds ?

Glad we have a fall season. Hens eat good.

I plan to partake in wisconsin fall season. Sept 15-dec 31. No limit on tags. As far as shooting baby turkeys...as a fall wingshooter, I am sure I take many of this years birds.

I'm all for the idea, but I don't live in a state that disallows fall turkey hunting. I know a lot of guys I hunt with in Georgia and North Carolina WISH there was a fall season, they are always saying too many hens in the spring. Honestly, I don't think there are enough dedicated fall hunters to make an impact and change any laws, most guys would rather knock one off sitting from a deer stand.

PA started as a Fall only season, our flocks fluctuate more from wet springs and the occasional tough winter. However we do hunt Gobblers in the spring after mating season to ensure sustainable flock.

I like Fall, OK i just like turkey hunting - killing a fall gobbler is much more difficult in my opinion, at least it is for me.

Calling in a flock - scattering - and then calling one back into the gun is pretty exciting; young turkeys and hens taste pretty good.

I'd like to experience a dog hunt sometime, that seems like a hoot.

I carry an over / under rifle shotgun (Valmet .223 / 12 ga.). Our fall season can be pretty short, and with limited opportunities to hunt, one chance is all you get I've used it and will do it again.

The late Jack Murray, who was one of the driving forces behind the reintroduction of turkeys in Tennessee, commented years ago, "You have no guarantee that a hen will survive the winter and breed in the spring, but if you kill her in the fall , she is guaranteed not to breed the following spring." Individuals who complain about "too many hens" in the spring are incompetent morons who no nothing about the biology of wild turkeys and even less about hunting them. If you are going to hunt turkeys in the fall, it should be a gobbler only proposition , which doesn't impact the fecundity of the flock.

So if I say man there are too many hens i'm an incompetent moron. After I read that blanket statement I lost any interest in what you had to say! Man I can't wait until the Michigan Fall season because there are way too many hens !

The folks who shoot hens, regardless the season or methods, reminds me of the pseudo-environmentalist who spend big bucks for an "environmentally friendly electric vehicle" then plug it in to charge the batteries. The question is, "does that electricity to power the car come out of their ass?" Similarly, the very folks who complain about too many hens, also bitch about too few gobblers even though an average turkey clutch produces a 50/50 ratio of females to males. Even with a sustained harvest of gobblers, the flock ratio of hens to gobblers in flocks where the hens are protected is maintained @ 50/50 due to the natural predation of hens during nesting. The surge in the numbers of natural predators ie. coons, skunks, foxes, coyotes, avian species makes the protection and conservation of turkey hens imperative for the health and growth of turkey populations.

Montana has a fall turkey season, rifles can be used and hens may be shot, it lasts 4 months, Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. I will give it a try this fall but I will not shoot a hen under any circumstances. If I use a rifle it will be my Ruger 10/22, just to use something other than a shotgun. General Deer season doesn't open here until usually the 3rd. week of Oct. so that gives the scared of getting shot dudes about 6 weeks before the goofy "would be doe hunters"
show up in their blaze orange color looking as goofy as the dumb asses they are. I guess I will take my chances and set out my new Gobbstopper Jake with a Gobbstopper hen and see if I can lure in one old Tom with lovin' on his mind.

decoykrvr wrote:The late Jack Murray, who was one of the driving forces behind the reintroduction of turkeys in Tennessee, commented years ago, "You have no guarantee that a hen will survive the winter and breed in the spring, but if you kill her in the fall , she is guaranteed not to breed the following spring." Individuals who complain about "too many hens" in the spring are incompetent morons who no nothing about the biology of wild turkeys and even less about hunting them. If you are going to hunt turkeys in the fall, it should be a gobbler only proposition , which doesn't impact the fecundity of the flock.

For myself- I try to target gobblers in the Fall first in the 2 states I hunt- New York and New Jersey. I have the gobbler (bonks) on my gobbler wingbone and a trumpet yelper down good the way Larry Profitt wrote about them. If I can't get on a gobbler- I target family groups and look for jakes first. Plenty of hens in my area -so taking a hen is no problem. I probably will only have 4 or so hunts in the 2 States on the weekends and would like to take a Fall turkey this Fall. I struck out last Fall in both States and both game depts are making plenty of money from me.

guesswho wrote:Another issue I have with a fall season is the fact that a lot of the birds killed are 2 to 4 months old. Just does't sound like something I'd be interested in seeing happen around here.

Lovett Williams used to talk about this. He was a proponent of shooting jakes during the fall/winter - because the chances of those birds making to being 2 year olds was not all that great, and you are harvesting birds that have a good chance of dying anyway. So, it was a good use of the resource.

I love fall turkey hunting. I've only hunted them fairly serious the last 7 or 8 years, so my experience in the fall is limited. But I'd rather be doing that than anything else in the fall. I killed 3 last fall, in 2 states. Loved every minute of it. Some of my most memorable hunts have been fall hunts, and my experience is that it's harder to hunt and kill any sex or age fall bird (sans canine) than it is a spring gobbler - in general. But I'm hunting out of state with no scouting at all, and talking about the whole deal including locating where some are - so the experience might be different if someone has birds patterned, I don't know....

Granted he spent a lot more time watching and studying turkeys than myself. But he would have had a hard time convincing me of that. I'm fortunate enough to see and watch 2 or 3 family groups each year. I don't know for sure but I'm fairly certain they are the same groups I see in the same areas all summer long and in up into about September most years. The biggest decrease in poults I see in those groups are about the first couple of months. After that the number in each group tends to remain pretty steady. There are some that turn up missing, but for the most part if I see a group in mid July with say 6 to 8 poults, by mid September or so They still have 75-80% of the poults if not all of them. I have also seen two hens with poults enter a field and get together. One had six and one had three. When they separated and went different directions one had seven and one had two.

One thing for certain, if you kill five poults at any age, that's five that will not see two years of age. Some areas obviously can support a fall season. But in the South where the spring seasons run for 6 to 8 weeks I don't see how the population could sustain itself without hunters making some other concessions. Shorter spring season, lower bag limit?

After thinking about it a bit more the poults I watch are only about six months old when they disappear, apparently relocating. So they would still have another year and a half to go to make it to two years of age.

guesswho wrote: One thing for certain, if you kill five poults at any age, that's five that will not see two years of age.

Preach.

guesswho wrote:Some areas obviously can support a fall season. But in the South where the spring seasons run for 6 to 8 weeks I don't see how the population could sustain itself without hunters making some other concessions. Shorter spring season, lower bag limit?

I'd agree to making spring concessions in exchange for some fall season in the southern states I hunt. Taking care of the resource is what should be the first consideration.
Some of TN's fall season regs have been borderline crazy, IMO. I can remember this guy saying he was going to kill 21 birds one fall... legally. That just can't be good.

I agree. I'd be willing to give up a week of spring to hunt a week of fall. But Id still just target longbeards. Just a personal choice deal. I also agree killing 21 in one area can't be good

guesswho wrote:I agree. I'd be willing to give up a week of spring to hunt a week of fall. But Id still just target longbeards. Just a personal choice deal. I also agree killing 21 in one area can't be good

On my last fall hunt last December, we called up a large group of birds - and I counted 102 that came by before I finally saw a longbeard, which I killed. He was actually a 1-1/2 year old, who would have been 2 in the spring.

The other two birds - I was hunting a place where the first bird in, was going to die. The first bird in on those two hunts was a hen once, and the other was a jake. For me it depends on the situation, and where I'm hunting.

Without stepping on toes, although some toes need to be stomped, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has been more interested in managing money, rather than the wildlife resources of the state. Concerned turkey hunters have advised TWRA personnel about the rapid decline in turkey numbers in the counties which had the excessive either sex fall seasons and bag limits , and in some areas the once thriving wild turkey populations have crashed. Unfortunately, rather than address over-harvest as the root cause of the precipitous decline, the TWRA has proposed a litany of possible other causes, which interestingly, did not impact counties and areas which have stable/growing turkey populations, but more restrictive fall limits. Wildlife Biologists and Managers have long recognized the importance of protecting "breeding stock" in the management of all of the large game mammals and waterfowl species for the maintenance and growth of populations by restricting the harvest of the breeding females. I feel that as turkey hunters we all need to exhibit restraint, regardless the allowed fall harvest, to concentrate our hunting efforts on gobblers which IMO are far more difficult to hunt in the fall vs. the spring. And while I'm on a roll, allowing archery hunters to harvest turkeys either sex during bow season is pure BS. That's not hunting, it's shooting, and w/ the advent and popularity of legalized crossbows in many areas, it is going to impact and affect legitimate turkey hunters.

guesswho wrote:Granted he spent a lot more time watching and studying turkeys than myself. But he would have had a hard time convincing me of that. I'm fortunate enough to see and watch 2 or 3 family groups each year. I don't know for sure but I'm fairly certain they are the same groups I see in the same areas all summer long and in up into about September most years. The biggest decrease in poults I see in those groups are about the first couple of months. After that the number in each group tends to remain pretty steady. There are some that turn up missing, but for the most part if I see a group in mid July with say 6 to 8 poults, by mid September or so They still have 75-80% of the poults if not all of them. I have also seen two hens with poults enter a field and get together. One had six and one had three. When they separated and went different directions one had seven and one had two.

One thing for certain, if you kill five poults at any age, that's five that will not see two years of age. Some areas obviously can support a fall season. But in the South where the spring seasons run for 6 to 8 weeks I don't see how the population could sustain itself without hunters making some other concessions. Shorter spring season, lower bag limit?

After thinking about it a bit more the poults I watch are only about six months old when they disappear, apparently relocating. So they would still have another year and a half to go to make it to two years of age.

Along with the killing of pouts that won't make it to two yrs old. For every hen that is killed is the possibility of 27 turkeys that will never be. To me that is my reasoning I don't shoot hens. I only gobbler hunt in the fall last season I took 8 toms in fall season in 2 different states. I think as long as you kill male birds it doesn't hurt the population as a whole nearly as much as shooting one hen out of a flock.