Here’s my take

What I’ve been trying to say about all this fanning and gobbler decoy stuff…….. decoys have been legal for a long time in a whole lot of what I refer to as “yankee states”. Those folks don’t care much about turkeys. They have a short season with a late start and a 1 or 2 turkey limit. They go out the first weekend and sit in a tent or on the edge of a pasture where they’ve been seeing a turkey strutting every day for the past 3 weeks and kill their Tom and after that they go right back to concentrating on finding morels or watching re-runs or Babe Winkleman or the In-Fisherman and start planning the coming winter’s ice fishing season. Then people ain’t hurting their turkey population by killing one or 2. Some of them don’t even bother to go. Lots of those folks (I’ve been there numerous times and they have told me) don’t even think turkeys are good to eat because most of those people don’t know how to fry stuff anyway.

Now you have Alabama. Alabama folks are flat out crazy about turkeys and a large percentage of the best turkey hunters in the world reside in Alabama. We’ve seen for years on this very forum every year about this time the Alabama boys go north and make an absolute mess out of turkeys everywhere you can think of north of the Mason Dixon line. Alabama has always been blessed with a long season and liberal limits and lots of turkeys and Alabama people love turkeys and it’s been a beautiful thing for a long time. The difference in Alabama and the yankee states is that decoys used to be illegal in Alabama and nobody never carried them and fanning turkeys hadn’t become a thing yet.
Now fast forward a few years and we’ve got a whole population of people that are crazy about killing turkeys and all the sudden the state gives them 46 days and a liberal limit and now you get to have decoys and a tent and a fan to go with it.
Just exactly what do you think is fixing to happen to the turkey population in Alabama? If you need me to answer this for you just stop reading now and go on and do something else because you probably won’t ever figure it out.

So really that puts our state at a crossroads. We all know we don’t have nearly as many turkeys as we used to. So do we go back to our old way with long seasons and liberal limits and no decoys or do we turn into just another yankee state with a 3 week season and a 2 bird limit and every license holder is issued their official NWTF tent and strutting decoy?
The turkey population cannot possibly sustain both. It’s not possible. So we have to make it known to the folks in Montgomery which way we want it.
I do realize that nest predators is also a huge concern. We now feed corn all winter for deer and make big fat happy coons that just keep making more and more little coon babies that grow up to be egg eaters so that’s another concern we have to address but I feel like the first thing we must do is decide whether we still wanna be Alabama or just another yankee state from a turkey standpoint. I sure hope we can get the old Alabama back.

When anybody asks me about hunting out West, I tell every single one, “it’s just like Alabama was 20 years ago”!!!

The problem lies between total number of hunters, nest predators, and much more effective means of harvest. The government can only control one, and even then you have people that don’t obey the laws. The resource will be protected because that is revenue for the state. I don’t think anyone in Montgomery wants to limit that revenue, but they will if thats what it comes to. That’s where the whole southeast is right now. Turkeys are not in the same carrying capacity as deer and I don’t think the good lord intended them to be. You would be hard pressed to have 8 guys turkey hunting a thousand acres. You can do that easily deer hunting. Covid had more people in the turkey woods than ever. Probably even folks that had never even thought to try it. I’m all for advocating and getting people in the outdoors but I think we are starting to hit a point in bama where there’s not much room for the hunting /fishing recreation. There’s football, hunting, and fishing. Sure there’s other hobbies but those three are pretty well known. I remember hearing stories of my father basically walking to hunt places. Trespassing back in the day wasn’t much of a thing as there was plenty of land available and landowners typically didn’t mind. Now you over pay for leases and if you don’t pay it there’s ten other guys that will. I didn’t mean to hijack the thread, but I think most folks aren’t looking at some of the real issues at hand. No matter what the government decides to do to try and protect the resource somebody somewhere will find something to complain about. The answer I believe is trap your predators,d self limit your own harvest, and improve your habitat if and where you can. Unless you have thousands of acres you need to get your neighbors to do the same.

Thou shalt not deer hunt turkeys. Old Testament number 11, I miss the good old days...

I have been turkey hunting the same area since 88 and this is my take on the decline of turkey hunting. Our lease had a real good turkey population until the late 90's when the land management changed in one season. We had about 300 acres of ag land taken out of production and planted in long leaf pines and the land around the fields were clear cut. Over the next 10 years most of the place was clear cut, poisoned , and burned. The turkeys just disappeared in a few years. We haven't kill a turkey on our place since 2013. Wildlife in general has suffered.

Totally agree. #banthefan

And you take this and multiply it by about 10 million acres and there is your answer if you have fewer turkeys in your area. My place that I mentioned in gobbler's thread that we have hunted over 50 years went through some similar times. From 1984 through 1989 we didn't kill a single turkey on it. Not only had our timber been clearcut, but so had most of the land around us. The trees grew, the habitat improved, and the turkey population rebounded. There have been ups and downs in population since then, but it has never completely collapsed, mainly due to insane management decisions I've made to put turkeys over dollars. That ain't gonna continue.

Brent, we have talked about this a number of times, and agree on most of what you posted. I've always appreciated your understanding of the difference in AL hunting and the rest of the country, and you have described it very well. I've always thought that difference is primarily due to the season and limit we've had in AL through the decades. With a 5 bird limit, hunters have the opportunity to become good hunters and develop a genuine appreciation for the wild turkey that I seldom see in other places. Taking that away is gonna result in us eventually being like everyone else. I guess some folks want that; I don't.

I don't doubt that decoys and fanning are hurting the hunting experience for traditional hunters. If your neighbor fans up a flock of gobblers and kills all of them, it's bound to hurt your hunting experience next door to him. Are so many being killed that there are literally none left to breed the hens? I don't see that happening around me, but maybe it is in your area. If you are having a gobbler overharvest, then you should be seeing a really skewed gobbler to hen ratio. Is that happening? I've seen it in the Midwest, but not in AL.

It sure wouldn't hurt my feelings if they outlawed fans and decoys. I would hate to see TSS outlawed; my one shot kill % has gone way up since I started using it, and I think that is a good thing for everyone, especially the turkeys.

Habitat = turkeys. If you have it, they will use it. If you don’t, they will go find it. Pines with overgrown understory will only make predators and decent deer cover. Take all the money spent on studies and overpriced researchers and put it into fuel for machinery and burning...the employees are already there and so is the infrastructure. Then create an incentive based program for private and timber companies to burn and plant perennials, like Florida does, and watch the turkey populations flourish. How is that pay to hunt places and private land managed for turkeys can take so many birds every year and still have plenty to hunt? Simple, they make them. You’ll never “save” enough gobblers through regulation to sustain a huntable population.

BINGO. Great post.

But, but, CNC says burning what is killing all the turkeys....................................................... Now, me personally, I agree 100% with this post. Build it and they will come. LOL.

Great habitat overrun with predators = no turkeys
Combine predator control and great habitat = many thriving turkeys

I’ve killed less than 6 turkeys using decoys and never fanned one to fail at it or had the desire to try
I’d prefer the option of using a deke over fanning even though I rarely use them

It's been said perfectly in the posts above what it takes to have turkeys. The DCNR's address of the situation is totally bassackwards and is reactive, not proactive. Reducing the number of hunting days, reducing bag limits, limiting days on certain WMA's only seeks to protect turkeys we already have. It does nothing to address the turkeys we don't have or won't have because they never made it past the nest or poult stage. It has to start where it begins, at the nest protecting the hen and increasing poult retention. Habitat enhancement and predator reduction should be at the top of the list instead of absent from it.

#SavethePoults!!! (Panola Productions).

Where you at CAB? Someone needs to send this thread to each member of it.

They wouldn’t care because there’s no financial benefit in it for them or those they truly represent

I’m not disagreeing with y’all on the idea of good habitat…..but where are y’all planning on these thousands of acres coming from that we’re gonna covert over to prime habitat???...... Its a great idea that we need to create new prime habitat but its likely never gonna occur on anything other than small scale changes from what we have now. The only possible way I could see wholesale habitat changes occurring that would substantially impact wildlife populations is if we changed the way we raise cattle.

This is the point I was telling PCP……..What are we more likely to accomplish next year??......Changing the way thousands of acres of land is being managed or reducing the predator load?? …..The second one is much more realistic in my opinion while the first is probably something we hope to work on long term at best.

I’ve realized, what turkey can use and thrive as moderate to above average habitat - is much different than what people think is turkey habitat. Take what you’ve always thought, always been told about habitat - and flush that utopian crap out the window. Come drive around with me at work for a year or two, and I’ll show a bunch of y’all where turkey can live just fine and it won’t look like what you think. I’ll warn you - it will change your thinking. They are adaptive. They have adapted. And we really should give them more credit for it.

I have a lease with habitat like you describe, non traditional for sure. It has incredible population actually, but right before season a 300ac chunk of private, that our lease borders, burned their whole place. Any guesses where the 8 birds I heard opening morning went? It’s not a mystery or an unsolvable puzzle. My dad bought 60ac that have never had a turkey in the 30yrs he’s lived next to it. Enrolled it into Florida landowner assistance program that cost shares to manage property for wildlife. Clear cut 40 and thinned 20, burned, put in 2 plots of clover and alfalfa. This was second year since, and he’s got a huntable population using his place. 3 gobblers, 6 jakes, 11 hens to be exact. The bare minimum of opening up the understory would be easily achievable, and effective, much more so than any regulation. Especially when regulation only works if you can enforce it, less than 1 possum cop per county aren’t going to change anything. Good habitat negates a lot of predation as well. Coyotes and bobcats are much less efficient in open areas, that leaves opossum and coons which are easy to curb, and avian predators require some imagination. The knee jerk reaction/regulation isn’t going to get us anything except less time to hunt.

Interesting point.

Frack a decoy.