I want to share something with yall that I read on a different website. This a resident of the state of Arkansas that spells out what these changes are going to accomplish. They have had these restrictions in place for a decade now. My point here is the Turkey Doc and our "king" in charger of the Alabama DCNR compared our future to Arkansas. I felt the need to share this with those that think these new regulations are going to save your turkeys and in a few years all will be well again. I hate to inform you that will not be the case as shown in the example below. Hopefully you all will understand why many of us do not support the changes made! We know there will be little to no noticeable improvement to the population. When something is taken away it rarely is given back!!!

[color:#FFFF33]This has been my argument all along as an Arkansas resident. If we rely on hunting regulations alone to make a significant impact, then we will be very disappointed with the results. What many in other states don’t realize is that the Arkansas season has been late and “later” for several years. Once they were concerned with a decline in the early 2000s, the season was moved back a week to around the April 10-14 range, then to the range of April 16-20, back to an April 8-10 range, and now back again to April 19. Reduced season from 30-39 days in early 2000s to around 21 days. The length of season settled around 15-16 days for close to 9 straight years, and back to around 20 days this season. They cut the fall season out in 2009 and implemented a no jake (1 allowed per youth) rule in 2011.

What have the results been? A continually decline in the population. A WMA I am very familiar with went to a draw about 7-8 years ago. Drastically reduced hunter #s and hours spent hunting. Habitat is unchanged. The harvest has been reduced by at least 1/4 to 1/5. And yet, far less turkeys are there now than before. Other public land areas shut down, so no hunting pressure, and still less turkeys. There are areas of the state that have faired better than others, but this is the norm for most of the state. A few reports of solid rebounds on well managed properties focused on habitat and intense trapping / predator control.

We have had high rainfall averages during April, May, June that in my opinion have wreaked a lot of havoc on success of hatches. 2012 was very dry in that period and the hatch report was very good. Not surprisingly 2014 yielded a good harvest total. We had dismal hatch results in 2017 (.86 PPH), 2018 (.95 PPH), and 2019 (1.13 PPH), with slightly better results in 2020 (1.53).

So, while I support conservative season structures, within reason, it would be hard to convince me that season structures alone will have any significant impact. I can’t disagree though that it’s sound management to take conservative approaches. [/color]

Another guy also brings up some valid points. Our very own PCP has made note of the last statement several times on here. I feel like this is a likely possibility as the state continues to reduce incentive and opportunity.

[color:#FFFF99]I'm not really in support of drastically reducing opportunity especially when it isn't backed by science and is just a theory.

Like I previously mentioned. Arkansas started reducing opportunity, moving seasons back, etc. nearly a decade ago. And they really aren't much better off now than they were then. Until other management factors start being implemented that CAN have a substantial impact on turkey populations, we won't see leaps in populations from these proposed changes.

There is another slippery slope that comes with reducing limits. Management of private lands. In the southeast there are some SERIOUS turkey hunters/hunting clubs that manage strictly for turkey. Especially in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia.... You start fooling with limits and seasons too much and you reduce their incentive to manage for turkey....Private lands are the wheelhouse for turkey across the eastern U.S.
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We got members here that are so jealous of other folks who have and kill turkey, that they want to end youth season. It’s a weird deal - but they don’t want people killing turkey because they themselves are so freaking miserable.

I personally feel the changes being put in place is for sole purpose of limiting the time and opportunity of those that are capable of killing a 5 bird limit. With the growing number of turkey hunters comes a lot a cry babies that have learned how to turkey hunt watching youtube.

Yep

Here is a link to the historical hunting license sales. Pay close attention to how many OOS license were sold in Alabama in 2021 and how much money the state is making on those license sales.

We all know to follow the money.

CLICK HERE

Looking at the information in the link it appears as though the license trend has been pretty steady for the last few years. There was a substantial increase of resident and non-resident this year. I have feeling the new regulations will hurt non-resident license sales and in my opinion that's a good thing. Our public land resources are being raped and pillaged on top of poor management. The combination of those two does not lead to a thriving population of any species.

Everyone knows how wonderful turkey hunting is in a Alabama WMA
It testifies to the great ability the state has at managing game and fish

When I lived in Arky - where I was at had birds and we only got one freakin bird and season was short - of course w one bird limit and having birds - I was always done quick anyway

March 26 opening is depressing here - never seen that and I fear it headed to April opening

Same thing for deer, but it was overwhelmingly welcomed on this site. There’s an even better argument that buck limits have ZERO to do with deer numbers. It was Strictly for trophy management. Where was the outcry? I’ll have to say that the dog hunters put up a better fight than anyone has on any rule changes so far. Being upset at turkey limits by anyone who was for buck limits is Hypocrisy at its finest.

Globe, biologically the management of those two species can not be compared as they have two completely different breeding behaviors and habits. The buck limit was never discussed as being a way to produce more trophies. A buck, of any age class, is going to successfully breed a doe or two, and if he’s lucky 3-4 out of entire season. It’s absolutely important that bucks are protected to breed does when they go into estrous. One gobbler can breed several hens in a day. They must be recognized as totally distinct in that regard.

MBrock, do you believe the "science" that Chamberlain is pushing? Does it align with your biological experience in AL?

Some of it yes. Some of it not.

Matt, we’ll have to agree to disagree that protecting a certain age structure of buck helps in the total number of does bred.
If it was just buck limits there might be an argument , but the antler restrictions prove (to me) that the buck limits were solely for trophy management, and to “spread the wealth”. Deer numbers were just fine and flourishing before the 3 buck limit. Doe days, back in my younger days, were for protecting the Deer population. Times haven’t changed that much....

I am not an expert at anything probably but don’t think u can manage deer and Turkey the same. They 2 different animals - why don’t we just throw squirrels and bass in there too and quail and dove

We are never worried about genetics w turkey - all I look for is does he hav a full fan or is he mature

I would rather they did not fool with season start dates - try a small move - take one turkey away - don’t make all these major changes and gearing up to make more changes - that even sounds stupid

Just wait until they impose more regulations when they find out these don’t work.

Just curious on this. What’s the difference between what the state is doing versus a club that limits its members to 2 or 3 turkeys per season? Besides the obvious being, I have a choice to join the club with certain limitations. At the end of the day it seems the same in principle to me though.

I've limited myself to three gobblers/season since 1996 er so. I had a great place and wife and I were killing six per season plus some more carrying other folks. We wouldn't kill too many in one area and would move to find fresh birds (7000 acres). Population stayed steady high till they cut the timber and then it was just mediocre hunting. Only thing that changed was the habitat destruction. Fked it up.

The club isn't pushing the season opening out to when the birds are pretty much gobbled out or its too hot to hunt. The club is limiting the numbers killed on a small scale according to the known numbers of birds. The state is limiting the numbers of birds killed statewide without taking into consideration local populations.

If they just dropped a bird r 2 I would be good with that - jacking the dates around later then u can’t shoot for 10 days after u shoot one is rough - that hurts more that if they left start dates same and drop limit to 3

Going to 4 r 3 and leaving the dates same would be way better

I don’t need to worry about it - I did not even hav 3 birds to shoot this past season anyway and the late start will make it even tougher to kill one

We didn’t shoot a bird on 3400 acres this year just across the line in Tn.