Originally Posted by gobbler
Originally Posted by SouthBamaSlayer

That study doesn’t impress me much if they’re going to use it to back regulation changes.. 24% of the adult male turkeys in their study were killed, but they had a 44% annual survival rate. That means that a greater number of turkey (total of 32%) were killed by environmental factors. Sounds like the bigger issue is environmental factors, not hunters.

The paragraph that’s going to bite us in the butt is this one, even though there isn’t much in the study to back it up.

“Although likely to stimulate negative feedback from stakeholders in the short term, making harvest regulations more conservative by reducing the season length or bag limit of the spring turkey season may improve adult male survival. Hunters would experience a reduction in the time they have to hunt, and the number of turkeys they could harvest, but this would increase the number of turkeys available to be hunted. Greater subadult survival facilitated by these harvest regulations may lead to high recruitment into the adult age class and more high-quality hunting opportunities.”


Spot on! I don't see how they can come to that conclusion. I also don't see WHY they would put that in the conclusions of the study. The study didn't really address the issue and it seems "random" to me !!?? Somethings smelly. 66% of adult gobblers die each year (22 of 33). 24% of adult gobblers are shot each year (8 of 33). That leaves 14 gobblers (63% of dead gobblers) dead from, I assume, predation although they don't address predation directly. Wouldn't it make more sense to address the biggest leak in the bucket (63% of the deaths vs 36% of the deaths)? Not only that but of the 8 gobblers shot, how may were shot as the 4th or 5th turkeys in someones limit? Seems like that would have been easy to find out and would DIRECTLY answer whether reducing the limit would make a difference and to what percent.


"leak in the bucket" ... whew, haven't heard that in a while. laugh

But yes, why not address that and whether reducing the limit would matter instead of a wholesale "Lower it! It will help! Do something!" approach.

If South Carolina is overrun with turkeys in another 3-4-5 years after lowering the limit then I'll believe it. Otherwise it's just something to try, similar to banning deer urine because of CWD - nothing has been 100 percent proven on that, either. Right?

Speaking of pee, is mature gobbler urine better for early season turkey scrapes or does hen urine work best?

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