>>>In other words, when all is said and done there is still going to be the same amount of birds killed even if that guy has already killed three.<<<

I don't think your basic assumption behind that idea is true. I have no idea what % of the mature gobblers are harvested every year, but neither does anyone else. And the number varies a lot from place to place. On those large properties in south AL that you have mentioned, it is the landowner who determines how many turkeys they will kill. Some of them have a number in mind and shut it down once they reach the number. I mentioned this in another thread, but have frequently seen groups of longbeards of 4 to 7 back together in the last week of April. Breeding season was over and they survived it. All of the rumours I've heard about people hunting early is happening on large blocks of private land. They may be killing a turkey that a neighbor would have gotten, but he wasn't gonna be killed on public land.

And I don't think you are giving the turkeys enough credit. Back when I hunted public land the pressure was just insane. A turkey would gobble and 4 hunters would be yelping to him. And yet many of them survived. Some just became wild enough that bad luck was the only way he would die. In many places I've noticed that high pressure makes turkeys quit gobbling. What I loved about the Coosa WMA was that many of those turkeys would gobble good up until near the end of the season, but they still didn't get killed. It seemed there was always just as many the next year.