Being a sportsman aint about following rules

Not necessarily.

Being a sportsman means that for one thing, you honor the word of MLK.

If you think the law is morally wrong, it's okay to say eff it as long you you can honestly live by that and be willing to accept whatever God decides to dish out to you when you've left the earth and/or before you get there...

But on good authority I believe that a wild turkey in alabama needs to be hunted for 30 consecutive days starting from the time he starts tearing up the woods more days that not...and then stop after a few of em within that 30 day window.

Like 3 per year. And if you'd rather kill 12 a year on your big ass piece of leased property then get you a couple friends or friends with kids or grandkids. 90% of yall will not kill over three this year. But that doesn't mean a lot of yall WON'T be done in 3 weeks...

And if some of you snowflakes believe that being a good person and/or sportsman means you 100% without exception follow every single law promulgated, regardless of its practicality or something else you deem stupid, then you won't get it...

Bring on March 1st (my opener). But it's okay. I'm done before most of yall start. [i][/i]

Interesting post. You say it's ok to make up your own rules, but you have already decided for me that 3 is enough.

I have decided to reject your rule.

U lost me with your heading

You got it backwards - respect the game and the law

This may go in the ditch fast - well - it started n the ditch - me and PCP just tried to revive it 😀

First rule of outlawing is don’t tell everyone you’re outlawing

This will be my 56th season Turkey hunting. Some years have limited.....some not....a few I couldn't hunt much. Counted Beards the other night and had 173. I'd say 80% of the Turkeys I've killed were during the first 2 weeks of April....when the Dogwoods are blooming they are usually HOT. Therefore, I never have hunted them out of season. Bush-whacked a couple in my younger years when I was more of a KILLER though.....

Hittin' the bottle early on Saturday.

Ok den

Can’t drink all day if’n you don’t start early!

Just blowing smoke, fellas

Mine leave as soon as the corn feeder stops so you’re saying it’s turkey season now. 👍

I will agree on the firs two weeks of April, year in and year out.

My best Alabama turkey season started out hunting with bustinbeards coincidentally and hunting mostly legally

😐

A fly fisherman trolling the turkey forum. What tha

I don’t understand the words that are coming out of your mouf

I don't

Problem is what have you bee smoking?

Dogwoods bloom here consistently about February 25th thru March 15. Been that way for 11 years since I moved this far south. By the second week of April, it’s full foliage green, hot and muggy most every morning, and fairly miserable. But most of all - the hunting is pretty dang slow.

and dont post it online . lol

MLK didn't turkey hunt...

A few have it......MANY Don't....so just carry on.

It has been several years since I read my Tenth Legion but seems like that is usually a good time to commence hunting them.

In all honestly, my "march 1st" season opener is just a tall tale. In theory, if I had the time to hunt every weekend and owned my own property I might consider doing it but like I said, I'm just blowing smoke out of frustration at our state laws.

We have two young children with a 3rd along the way. My wife stays at home and I am sole income and that will likely not change for several more years.

I am able to get some time away on the weekends but not much. Just my station in life for the time being...

Peak dogwood bloom for the entire southeast is middle of March- middle of April. Turkeys gobble year round and breed for several months mainly during hunting season. Hunt them when they are in season otherwise you are breaking the law and are as bad as a poacher imo.

“Bring on March 1st, my opener”

*gets called out on it*

“Ah I was just joking you guys”

there wasn't anything wrong with Mar 20-April 30 central Alabama. Fkn idiots in Montgomery just changing dates to make themselves relevant...

I get what you’re saying, Ozark. Looking back I’ve done most of my killing from March 15th- April 2nd. If I could I would trade the muggy green mornings in April for crisp cool mornings in March.

I've always had trouble with the Gobblers being sooooooo "Henned Up" in March. That's why most of my killing has been the first 2 weeks in April after more of the Hens have been Bred/Setting.

That’s a good point too. I’ve never really understood why the dates are changed/micromanaged when you’re only supposed to kill 5 a season in the first place

It's the first step toward making sure you don't kill any.

I never saw any thing wrong with it

For the record I’m not trying to debate what dates are the best for everyone. I know at least 4 of y’all on this thread have been turkey hunting since before I was even born

Break the law NEVER hunt opening day. Wait at least 4-5 days into the seasons.

March 25 - May 8 (DECOYS ALLOWED APRIL 4 - MAY8)
Counties: Autauga, Baldwin, Barbour, Bibb, Blount, Bullock, Butler, Calhoun, Chambers, Cherokee, Chilton, Choctaw, Cleburne, Coffee, Conecuh, Coosa, Crenshaw, Cullman (except north of Lewis Smith Lake and north of Cullman County Road 437 and west of Interstate 65), Dale, Dallas, DeKalb, Elmore, Escambia, Etowah, Fayette, Geneva, Greene, Hale, Henry, Houston, Jackson, Jefferson, Lamar, Lee, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Marion, Marshall, Mobile, Montgomery, Perry, Pickens, Pike, Russell, St. Clair, Shelby, Sumter, Tallapoosa, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Washington, and Wilcox.

ZONE 2:

April 1 - May 8 (DECOYS ALLOWED APRIL 11 - MAY 8)
Colbert, Cullman (north of Lewis Smith Lake and north of Cullman County Road 437 and west of Interstate 65), Franklin, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Morgan, and Winston.

uhmmmmm we need to be like some states that allow center fire rifles and be able to use dogs to bust up trukey flocks in the fall season . lol.

Hey man..aint no joke…when i told our neighbor in texas i was turkey huntin with a shotgun…he looked at me like i was crazy an said “why…..just shoot it with a rifle when it comes to the feeder”….i learned how different we were that day

Florida used to be the same way. I hunted at a commercial lodge 30 years ago with maybe 8 other hunters. I was the only one with a shotgun, they gave me a load of shitt about it....till I killed the first and only gobbler killed.

hell, rifles were legal here in Game when I first started turkey hunting, Late Jurrasic Period...LOL

i remember a guy taking about killing them with a 22 hornet years ago didnt know it was legal though.

Rifles in AL were legal until at least 1970. I'm sure of that because I remember a hunt very well that year when I carried 2 guns, a rifle and a shotgun. Most of the serious turkey hunters in our area then carried a rifle.

I think they must have been made illegal before the 1971 season; I don't remember using a rifle that year or anytime after. I remember being glad that they were illegal because it was too much trouble to carry 2 guns.

71 would be 4 years before i started bigger game and going out to hunt up until about that time it was smaller stuff around home . was 74 before i started hunting in a club setting and hearing others hunting stories .

You missed out on a unique era of turkey hunting. There had been no turkeys in our part of Perry county where I grew up for decades. We didn't know many people who knew anything about turkey hunting, but all of a sudden there were turkeys everywhere. My dad and a few other men really got after them in the early 60s, and it was mostly trial by error. They figured out that a rifle was a big advantage, and so they all started carrying 2 guns. Everyone used what they had, and my dad didn't have anything except a cheap 30-06 built on a Mauser action. He got a friend to load him some shells for turkeys. I think they ran around 2000 fps and wouldn't tear up a turkey as bad as a deer round.

When he passed away in 2000, I found one of the old turkey rounds in his hunting gear. I always thought I would like to shoot it someday. Maybe one of those full strut decoys would make a good target for it.

PCP, talking about turkey hunting in the 70's brought back some fond memories.

Growing up in the 70's one of my classmates father was a well-known turkey hunter and the only person I remember that turkey hunted. Everyone else hunted deer, squirrel, rabbit, or quail. A man that said he was a turkey hunter may as well have a horn growing out of his head, because he was a unicorn. One afternoon, when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, he brought a turkey he had killed to the school to show all of us. I remember being in awe looking at that gobbler, since I had never seen a wild one up close. From that day on turkey hunting always intrigued me, mainly because no one I knew did it and it held some sort of magic about it. I tried my hand at it a couple of times in high school, without success, on some family land that really didn't have any turkeys on it. It wasn't until I was out of college, married, and working that I finally decided I was going to learn to be a turkey hunter. At the time I still didn't know anyone that hunted turkeys, so I didn't have a mentor of any type. But I was determined to learn. I grabbed a box call, some lead #6's and struck out to the WMA that was about 45 min from our house. That was around 1997. Man, to have thousands of acres to yourself and no turkey hunters, those were the good ole days and I sure do miss them.

Couldn't you use a rifle during the fall season up until a number of years back?

PCP. back in the early 70 Tallapoosa county where I hunted was loaded in turkeys and deer . Here at home in Elmore county no turkeys I didn't see my first doe here till I was 14. . I hunted rabbits, squirrels and quail.

All game laws were made for a reason. That reason is much more important than the law itself. Nobody really considers the reasons these days. They just blindly follow the law. And that in itself is much of our countrys problem right now. We need to learn to think for ourselves and take care of our land because the ones who make the laws are destroying it.

You could, and you still can! It's just not legal.

My memory is that they made them illegal around 1970 and that included both fall and spring. But I never did much fall hunting and could be wrong. Several counties got their fall season ended because deer hunters were killing so many turkeys with rifles. It wasn't legal, but many folks considered that a minor point.

Enjoyed the story, 3 toe!

I didn't realize Elmore was that late getting deer. Coosa had both long before then.