Originally Posted by Clem
Originally Posted by Jstocks

I use them sometimes, but I dang sure don’t have to have one to kill one. The ones who do, to be quite frank, I hope they take up bass fishing.



But that is your option, your choice to make. Removing the option because "I don't like it!" is not reason enough to impose a ban and that's the only reason a lot of hunters want decoys gone or restricted. They just don't like it.

Any wildlife decision should be made first and foremost with the biology in mind: is it harmful to the resource, or will it not harm (and possibly benefit) the resource?

Anything after that should be secondary.

We could parse your others individually:

-- rifles for turkeys? That's a clear safety issue. We already have f'king dumbasses who shoot other turkey hunters with shotguns.
-- turkeys around deer feeders? Meh, talk about easy and a true detriment to the resource. That's a no-brainer to prohibit that.
-- bearded hens? They're a genetic anomaly just like albino deer and probably should be taken out of the pool. No big loss.
-- killing 5 turkeys on your annual license? That would be fine with me, to be honest. Why is April 3 so sacred when I could shoot the same gobbler on October 11? I seriously doubt there would be any detrimental on the population if we didn't have a spring season.


As for "we don't need any laws," that's silly. It's the unnecessary restrictions and the "let's do something!" restrictions that are useless.

We didn't need "official shooting time" for deer season. For eighty decades we got along just fine without it. But whoa, in 2015 or whenever it was, we suddenly needed to become like all the other states and by golly have "shooting time" for deer. It's unnecesary and idiotic. But it made someone feel good about doing something - just like the 10-day decoy restriction.



Respectfully Clem,
It’s your opinion that outlawing decoys is restrictiv, and it is. The law is intended to make it harder for folks to kill a turkey by not giving the aid of a decoy.

Personally, as you pointed out my opinion, I’m fine with it. I’d much rather them impose those type of restrictions than move the season dates, reduce the limit, etc.

I also like the fact that it takes some of the folks who aren’t die hard turkey hunters out of the game. It’s not that I don’t like decoys, it’s that I feel we’ve allowed the game to get cheapened to the point where some of this is necessary.