Interesting turkey info from Chuck Sykes

Y’all may remember I emailed Chuck about the CAB moving the turkey opener to the 3rd Saturday in March a while back. I posted his response here. I followed up and emailed him back a couple weeks ago and asked him some more questions regarding the Auburn turkey study and if he had the information on how many hunters killed limits last year since they are discussing lowering the limit. I have been critical of Chuck but I have to say I am impressed that the director has taken the time to email me back personally several times. He emailed me today and told me that the Auburn study will wrap up this fall and they will be discussing possible alternatives then. He also sent me an attachment which details the 2017 and 2018 harvest data. This is the while whale that PCP has been asking to see for years.

In 2017 123 hunters killed 5 turkeys which was 2.42% of the reported harvest.
In 2018 178 hunters killed 5 turkeys which was 3.21% of the reported harvest.

So what I take from that is changing limit won't affect numbers much...less that 200 birds on past results if the limit changes by 1...

Wow, you did get the white whale.

So the numbers are about what I expected - reducing the limit to 3 would "save" less than 400 turkeys per year. And it really would be a lot less than that; most of those guys would just carry a shooter. We are talking about a very insignificant number of turkeys.

Also, this is one area where the GC numbers are absolutely correct. If a hunter won't report his kills at all, then he surely won't be worried about a limit. I think that tptb are just worried about perception. It isn't PC now days to have a generous limit.

What is “IVR Data”?

So now y'all trust GC numbers?

How can they cite Game Check data as evidence for any decision, when they told us just last week that they estimate participation at only about 30%.....

I'm not exactly following what he presented. I don't understand how he got from the 5,549 figure to total harvest of 9,570 in 2017, then 5,087 to total harvest of 9,103 in 2018. Either way 178/9,570 = 1.85% in 2017 and 123/9,103 = 1.35% in 2018. That's the actual percentage of total harvest caused by the 5th bird based off of how I am reading those numbers.

The people you really have to worry about aren't the ones who report their 5 birds on game check. It's the ones who kill 15-25 birds a season and don't report any of them. And trust me they exist. I have known several people over the years that have done it.

Yes and no. I trust that the numbers we are looking at are 100% accurate based on those who reported their harvest. I also think that even if GC compliance is only 30%, those percentages of folks who killed 1-5 birds wouldn’t change very much even if compliance was 100%.

Preliminary results form the Auburn study show that a later season opening and a reduced limit would allow more hens to be bred. I’m not smart enough to know if that’s true or not but I’ll read the study when they release it.

For this. Think about it - the guys who won't report their turkeys are already ignoring the law. Do you think a single one of them would now pay attention to a limit reduction? Why would they?

I have often said that GC shows us the LEGAL harvest, and I don't see any reason to doubt their numbers. I believe that their estimate on compliance is probably high, but if it is right it tells us that 70% of the harvest is illegal. Reducing the limit will have zero effect on those who already ignore the rules.

I expect they will eventually do it anyway. DCNR folks in other states look down on AL and our guys take it personally.

I don’t follow the numbers either. I’m not sure what “IVR” is either.

I don't think GC is worth anything and the way it came about was even worse. That said, as one who has been very critical of Chuck I do appreciate his response to you. I believe he would garner more respect if he would admit his faults and have an open discussion about things.

I will be interested in reading the study results too, and I strongly suspect that the later season idea is more a theory than fact. SC reached that conclusion from their study, but they didn't have any real evidence.

Common sense would say that if you have only one gobbler in an area and someone kills him before he breeds the hens it will be bad for the flock. They have always managed that in the past by having a later and shorter season in those places. Seems to me that is the reasonable approach.

The way I heard it presented was the reasoning behind pushing back the season to the 3rd Saturday in March is that a lot, if not most, of the hens get bred in late February and 1st 3 weeks in March. After that, breeding still occurs but a lot of hens have already been bred. As I understood it, lowering the limit to 3 birds will have no effect on the future population as most of the gobblers have already bred hens by the time the season opens. If they get killed, they just won't be available for breeding next year. It wouldn't surprise me if they moved the season back to March 20th like it was for many years but keep the limit at 5. Roughly 93% of reported harvest are the hunters killing 1-3 birds with only 3% reported killing the limit. The biggest threat to turkey population are not hunters. It has been and always will be habitat destruction and predators.

Dr. B

The numbers presented are a little confusing. The numbers that southwood posted are frequency percentages. Basically in 2018, 3.21% of hunters that reported turkey kills, killed a limit. The actual percentage of turkeys killed by people that limited out relative to the total number killed was 9.23%.

Thanks for posting that; I jumped the gun on my figures. How about walking us through how you determined that?

Pcp. The numbers listed are not how many turkeys the guys who killed 5 took. It’s how many hunters killed 5,4,3, etc. so 178 hunters actually took 890 birds.

Thanks, I finally realized I was so excited at seeing the white whale that I jumped the gun on on what it actually said. I would edit it, but too many people have seen it.

I vaguely remember studying frequency % over 40 years ago, but I don't remember anything about how to apply it. Someone give us a quick lesson. Can you figure how many made up #4 and 5 in bag limits?

Just a guess, but I'd say 222+123 = 345. 345 represents 3.8% of total harvest.

I believe this is correct:

222 took 4 = 888

123 took 5 = 615

Total harvest = 8266

Hunters who took 4 or more birds were 6.78% of the successful hunters who used game check.
They accounted for 18% of the total game check harvest.

That's what I was trying to figure out. In 2017 it breaks down like this:
3184 total birds were killed by hunters who reported killing just 1 bird
2196 total birds were killed by hunters who reported killing 2 birds (2x1098 hunters)
1365 ----------------------------------------------------------------------3 birds (3x455 hunters)
888------------------------------------------------------------------------4 birds (4x222 hunters)
615------------------------------------------------------------------------5 birds (5x123 hunters)
8248 total birds reported in 2017

They say 8266 total harvest without IRV (whatever that is) so I'm not sure why the numbers don't add up. So does this mean that if the limit had been 3 birds in 2017, would there have been 1503 (888+615) extra gobblers in 2018?

Dr. B

Really birds 1-3 are irrelevant to the discussion though. We are talking about a limit reduction from 5 to 4 or 3.

Sure. So If you drop the limit to 4, you save 123 birds if those hunters who killed 5 do not guide anyone else. If you drop it to 3 you save 468 if those hunters don’t guide anyone else

So. Birds 4 and 5 made up 5.6% of the 8266 harvest total.

Jesus, y'all are making my head hurt

I always knew that Preacher and the rest of y’all killers on here were 1%ers!

If you would go kill a turkey it would make it feel better

Wish I had the property that had those kind of numbers.

Those guys have the whole world to hunt. Piddling is their livelihood!

Oh I know. Just wish I had property that had those kind of numbers.

And neglect their jobs and family for 60 days to do it.

I think basing anything on game check numbers is totally useless. They probably get more reliable info using a monkey and a dart board. Until they can get very high compliance, which is never, they're hoping and passing into the wind. Trying to manage a bunch of Alabama rednecks is like herding cats

You dang right!

I wish they would shut deer and Turkey season down for about 2 years and only allow predator hunting. I know it would not stop all the deer and turkeys from dying but I bet you would see a noticable difference in the following decade in deer and Turkey populations.

Thanks, 468 is the number I have wanted to know.

What is the % we are assuming are not reporting to game check, you have to add that as well even if we assume they will not follow game laws as they dont report anyway.

I’m making the assumption that the ratio of 4th/5th birds to total harvest will remain similar to the 5.6% in game check. If chucks 35% participation is correct, that would mean less than 1500 birds saved statewide by dropping the limit to 3.

1500 is a bunch of Turkey gobblers. Wonder how many of those would die of natural causes that year they were not killed? Over a 4 or 5 year period that's a sure enough bunch of turkey gobblers saved

1338 birds total to be exact. Of course that’s assuming chucks 35% participation is correct. To break it down further, that would add about 20 longbeards per county. Let’s be optimistic and say 3/4 of them survive and no hunters take others after limiting out. After 3 years you’ve added 45 longbeards per county. That’s about as many as you will ever add because the older ones will die. With this format, perry county would have an additional longbeard per every 16 square miles. My guesstimating may be way off, but even if it improved the gobbler numbers twice what I’m thinking, it won’t make a crap worth of difference.

That's 1338 more than will survive this year so that's a good thing! Once population numbers recover they can always increase the limit

Yeah man that’s like thousands of eggs those gobblers could lay in their nest. Population explosion I say!!

They won’t increase sh*t. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

What he said

More gobblers to protect the poults after they hatch too....

It's a good thing you are a good businessman because you dont understand turkey biology worth a flip

Yep. Anyone that can kill 5 birds doesn't have a problem with their turkey population.

Maybe some folks kill their 5 on 5 different properties.

I understand hearing gobblers. That's what we hunt, gobbling turkeys. If 1500 more survive a year those 1500 provide an opportunity for someone to hear them and hunt them the next year. I have hens with 0 polts every year, is that because they did not get bred or because a predator killed the little ones? I am not sure. What I do know is I like hearing turkeys gobble so anything that may equal more gobbling turkeys sounds good to me. I am not a good business man either I have simply been blessed beyond what I deserve
Nah it's just 1500 more that could gobble or breed next year. Yall make this way to hard

How is any of a non overpopulated species surviving not a positive toward the species health? Since you are going to teach me about biology let's break down what the negative impact on the Turkey population in the state will be by allowing 1500 male turkeys to survive? Will predator numbers increase due to an abundant food source? Will Turkey population numbers decrease? Will adult Male Turkey numbers decrease? Will predation on hen turkeys decrease as predation opportunities on Male turkeys increases with an additional 1500 male turkeys each year?

Or 5 on 10 properties

Some folks gonna b!tch about how they don’t hear as many on ONE piece of property as they did in 1907...and Chucky and Co need to do SOMETHING to make it better.

1) have they done anything besides complain? Habitat management. Predator management. Feed em tor crying out loud? Nope. We just here to b!tch.

2) if you ain’t got enough turkeys where you can currently hunt...GET OFF ALDEER AND GO FIND SOME PROPERTIES THAT HAVE TURKEYS!!!!

If they shorten the season and lower the limit only time will will if it helps the population or not. The bottom line is that we need hens to successfully nest, those eggs to hatch and those poults to survive. The Auburn study is pointing towards the fact that because of our harvest being heavily slanted to the first two weeks of the season that some hens aren’t getting bred.
I’d that is the case then push the season back but don’t take days away from us or lower the limit. Season can open on March 20th and go out on May 5th.

This makes sense to me and if this is the case they need to do away with youth weekend as well or move it to the end of the season. The number of days is irrelevant to me as I dont go everyday like I used to but I have no problem having 38 days instead of 45 if it can possibly increase Turkey populations.

Rather than looking at this 1,500 saved gobblers, I think you might find it easier to digest a more dialed down scale for an example. As PCP and many others have stated for years, gobblers are insignificant to general turkey populations as long as there is at least a bird or two to breed hens. I personally have never seen a property in Alabama that did not have at least one or two gobblers in the vicinity to take care of the breeding.

So, on to an example. Say I have 1,000 acres and I have 10 gobblers and 30 hens that transition in and out and through my property. I feel like these numbers are very realistic for Alabama, and on a lot of properties (like Jackson county), it is very conservative. Now let's suppose turkey season rolls around and two scenarios happen. First, I go out and kill a limit of 5 birds throughout the season. That leaves 5 gobblers to take care of servicing the 30 hens. They are more than capable, and I would assume happy to oblige to taking on those responsibilities. I would just about guarantee you every hen would be bred with 5 suitors in the vicinity.

The next scenario is Chuck in his infinite wisdom reduces the limit to 3. So now 2 gobblers are spared, and there are 7 gobblers remaining to take care of the breeding. Obviously they would be equally successful in breeding the 30 hens.

I think folks get tied up on this idea that those two spared gobblers will carry forward to next year, and somehow that is going to grow the population, when in reality, they are missing the forest for the trees. So back to this example. Those 30 hens are all bred and for simplicity, let's conservatively assume that they all lay 8 eggs. Now let's assume that 1/3 of those nests are successful and hatch, so you are left with 10 clutches of 8 turkeys, so 80 new birds on 1,000 acres. Next, let's assume that 1/4 of those survive the first 6 months of life to a point where they are fairly competent to survive in the wild, so you are left with 20 new birds on this 1,000 acres. Of course throughout this example you will have natural attrition to predation and other factors, but the addition of 20 birds a year should be enough to sustain and maintain a steady population.

Now this whole nesting success and survival of poults bit is the most important thing to maintaining healthy turkey populations. To me, it makes a lot more sense to be worried about the 60 birds who did not survive to adulthood, or the 20 nests that were unsuccessful in hatching (20X8=160 lost poults) than to worry about 2 gobblers that I enjoyed shooting back in the Spring. Do you see how insignificant they really are to the big picture?

The answer to the turkey population "problem" has nothing to do with hunter harvest in my opinion. It's a habitat and predation issue, and both of those can be managed by landowners and lease holders. The problem is most are too lazy to spend the time and money to address these issues. Probably the most important factor to nesting success, which I haven't even mentioned yet is weather. This is obviously an uncontrollable factor, but several wet Springs back to back to back can obviously be detrimental to turkey populations. Fortunately, we have had very good hatches the last two Springs and a large part of that is due to good weather. That has been observed throughout the state from most everyone I've talked to. I think the limit reduction / shortening the season BS is just a cop-out for Chuckie, and he's failing to address the real issue. I don't think a limit reduction or a shortened season will have any impact whatsoever on overall turkey populations. If anything, I think it will have a negative impact because landowners and lease holders will be less motivated to spend the time and money on habitat improvements and predator control due to the reductions in bag limits / season length.

Dang, how did we go from the 468 "saved" that GC provides to 1500? I don't understand using that figure even on a theoretical basis. I am an amateur when it comes to turkey biology, and have no qualifications to do it for a living, but I am supposed to know something about human behavior.

The estimated 70% of AL turkey hunters who ignore GC are already illegal hunters. They are hunting outside of the law. Why would anyone think they are suddenly going to decide to be legal? They won't. The 468 number is the one to use when discussing this. We are talking about less than 7 per county.

Someone said there was only 35% participation in game check so the actual number based on that is closer to 1500. I know several legal hunters who just dont game check but fill out their paper harvest record but they still kill turkeys within the limit

I am totally against a reduction in bag limits, until I see more data to support it. However, the idea that just because 3 or 4 gobblers are left to breed 30 or more hens isn't biologically sound from a genetics standpoint. You want genetic diversity in a breeding population and the more that is reduced, the more likely you will see inbreeding and our turkeys will start acting like West Virginians. I don't know what the magic number is for turkeys, but I'd bet the farm it's more than a handful of gobblers to 30 hens.

Can't a single bull (cow) service that many female cows? I know you change out the bull eventually, but a 10:1 for turkeys doesn't seem unrealistic.

Ben, do you disagree with my point that the illegal hunters who don't participate in GC will be unaffected by any change in the limit? I am sure there are hunters who fill out the paperwork to avoid getting a ticket and then never GC the bird, but I suspect the ones who do that and tell you they stop at the limit are lying.

Troy has often said that in his experience most hunters who have the resources to kill more than 5 will kill more than 5. That's what I have noticed as well. I am very pessimistic about the prospects of getting hunters who won't GC their kills to obey any hunting regs. They have already shown that it doesn't hurt their conscience to break the law. Again, I think this is all about perception and will have no benefit for the turkeys.

That obviously doesn't apply to turkeys because Chuck has already told us that the dominant bird breeds all the hens early in the season, hence the later start date (shortened season).

you, sir, have hit the proverbial nail on the head ... regulations are like locks - they keep honest people honest ... lol

Brother struts next to brother and gets whooped by Daddy all the time - while fighting over brothers sister and Daddy’s daughter. Been happening since turkey started being turkey.

We get in the weeds sometimes with these discussions, but this is not much of a factor.

The ones I know wont kill over the limit

Ben how much land do you hunt and what do you do every year to help grow/sustain your turkey population?

I am going to give you an example of how I have transformed a 750 acre tract of property from a mediocre turkey property into a jam up property by doing a few things. This property is not very far from you either. It also consist of typical Alabama property and not 750 acers of manicured hardwoods.Trapping coons/coyotes for starters, I live to far away but I got the deer hunters which live close by to wage war on the coons/coyotes. I invest a lot of money in white/red clover which I provide to the deer hunters free of charge and they plant the plots during the fall. I buy and plant at least 3 to 4 acres of chufa every year on this property. Lastly I manage my trigger finger! I am 6 years into leasing the sole turkey rights on this property and the population has grown with each year. I average any where from 10 to 12 mature gobblers and have seen at least 6 jakes and as many as 12 annually for the past 5 years. My partner and I take no more than 5 birds off this property every spring. We could kill a limit each year off this place if we choose to do so. The amount of jakes we have each year could handle any breeding the mature birds did not take care. It is our choice to leave some mature birds and finish out our limits on other properties. Do I think leaving the mature birds makes a difference, no I do not. If that was the case I should see 15 to 20 gobblers instead of the consistent numbers I have seen. There are several factors that come into play. My #1 factor is the amount of acreage. I know several of those mature birds range off of my lease never to be seen again. You will also have natural mortality or predator kills every year to some degree. You will also have poor hatches along with a lot more variables that lead to turkey population decline on certain years. We has game keepers can help by buy doing things we can control which are mentioned above. Those are just a few basic things most land owners/lease holders can do that help.

It takes extra money, effort and some self imposed restrictions to ensure I have turkeys to hunt each spring. I don't need the state to limit my opportunities to hunt in my home state. What would be helpful is if the state would encourage more trapping and predator hunting. If would also be helpful to publish information/guidance on how land owners and lease holders could improve their properties to promote a better turkey population. I get emails all the time from the Alabama DNR and very little is useful to me. They need to use this avenue to help promote and educate folks that otherwise are to lazy to ask/look for the help or simply don't know where to start to find the information. I did not learn what I know today overnight and I sure wish I had the knowledge I know now at my finger tips much earlier.

I have never seen a state or federal mandated plan work out as intended. I'm sure there are many success stories out there, but I have never seen one. What I have seen and agree with PCP here, is the freedom the state has given land owners/lease holders to manage their property for better wildlife. This is encouraged by the length of our season and generous bag limits. Take that away and I have the same fear as many do have here, that land owners/lease holders will do less and it be determinantal to population.

Squeaky, just stop talking all of that sense!!!!!! Everybody knows that the only way hunting gets better is if the government runs, regulates, legislate and demands that the peasants will do it their way and like it no matter the outcome!!

Educate, not legislate is the key!!!!!!

Benn saying that for years, folks are to uneducated to know about education I guess.

Unless they go to tags that are attached to the deer or turkey before moving all these numbers are useless IMO. I would like to know how many people report their 5 th bird the last week of the season.

Mike, would it be safe to say you wouldn’t go to all that trouble if you could only kill 3? Me personally, I feel pretty confident I can scrounge up 3 birds between the couple of places close to home I hunt and public land. I’d drop the turkey rights I have in south Alabama, stop planting Chufas, etc. there simply wouldn’t be any point in leasing a ton of land or putting a ton of work into it. As I’ve witnessed in Georgia, I think this would be a widespread mindset.

Squeaky yes we trap hogs, coyotes, coons. We have 3 people that hunt and none of them have ever killed a limit off the place in 25 years. The past 5 years we have not killed a 5 bird limit between the three of us in any season We have feeders out year round, about 300 acres of our 1200 is agriculture land farmed by a member here corn soybean or cotton though normally cotton. Before that is was a cattle farm. We plant clover with all our our food plots and plant clover in any openings we have like loading docs etc. We plant plant fields with only grains like sorghum and millet that we leave standing all winter then bush hog in the spring. We have tried chufas but hogs destroyed them but dont bother the grains as much. We have planted pines ranging from 3 years old to 25 year old stands. We burn stands of pines on a rotation. I would say the set up we have is picture perfect Turkey habitat. We have swamps and hill sides with beautiful hardwood timber, river bottoms, oak flats etc. It used to be covered up. Bit I am not co cerned about our property I have watched some heavily managed places up to 5000 acres basically have populations cut to nearly 0 where for the last 25 years turkeys were absolutely everywhere. Is there any data that shows a population decline in the last decade in Alabama or is it just on the 6 or 8 properties I have been privileged to hunt?

I believe that someone told you that, but I doubt they were telling you the truth.

Think about it - you can't hunt with a GC paper form that already has a turkey on it, and the kill is over 48 hrs and doesn't have a GC number. Anyone would know that will get you a ticket for sure if the GW checks you. So the only way they can get around that is to destroy their Harvest Record after every turkey and then print out a new one. Anyone who does this has made a cold and premeditated decision to break the game laws. And now these same people will decide that they have to abide by a reduced limit?

People are certainly capable of irrational thinking, and I believe those guys are great examples if they were telling you the truth. If you are sure they would obey a reduced limit, then you must have discussed this with them in depth. How did they justify their premeditated decision to break the regs on GC, and yet they would feel bound by a lower limit? I would really be interested in the thought process there.

My observation is that most people either decide to accept the authority of the DCNR, or to reject it. I certainly know of folks who have rejected it, but to a man they would tell you that they will laugh at any limit reduction.

I believe that there would be a high correlation of those who ignore GC and those who would ignore a lower limit. It may not be 1:1, but it would be close. Of course, most of them would also lie about it. I think your friends are pulling your leg; it just doesn't seem like normal behavior.

Tags are the only answer for deer and turkey and game wardens that actually check them instead of constantly looking for corn piles. We need more wardens riding these dirt roads stopping every time a truck is seen at a gate and follow any truck cruising. Saw one just last week that pulled up to gate listening , knowingly poaching and when asked what they'd heard they jump in truck. Black ford lamar county

CHUCK SYKES is the BEST thing that Ever happened to the Game and Fish Division....HE HAS A COLLEGE DEGREE....and knows how to Administer his Knowledge....WDE!!!!!!!!

Austin I would cut way back on what I do and the land I lease. I’m like you and could scratch out a 3 bird limit on public and a few private tracts I can hunt for free.

Y'know, if they'd just go to a 2-gobbler limit and knock two weeks off of the season, think of all the birds that could be "saved" and stockpiled for the future.

Duck hunters had to do this for a while in the 1980s with the 1-bird daily limit.

Going to a season limit of two gobblers with a minimum beard length of 5 or 6 inches and making the season April 1-30 could do wonders. Just like with the 3-buck limit, we'd have scads more mature bucks and a healthier herd of turkeys.

It's for the good of the turkeys. Besides, who needs to kill more than two birds a season anyway? If it's truly about the experience and "being in Creation" and all, then two should be enough.

Yep, but why not 1-bird, on alternate years? Pretty soon we could have a turkey extravaganza. And I think we need an app to log any gobbles heard, you know, just so that we have more data. Data is good, right? Besides, it's easy!

Another factor I never hear discussed is when birds 4, 5, and beyond actually get killed relative to the start of the season? For every capable turkey hunter I know, I don't know a single one who will kill more than one in a day in Alabama....even the outlaws. With that being said, and given the fact it is unheard of to kill 5 turkeys in as many days up this way, assuming it takes a minimum of a couple weeks to kill all 5.....what possible difference could it make in the population if gobblers 4 and 5 don't get killed until say two weeks into the season AT LEAST? The whole premise of cutting the limit is just flawed in every single aspect. There simply is no logic or biological basis/premise for doing it. Totally illogical and an effort in futility on every front.

I personally, given I fully understand from observation and trail cameras how many hens haven't even thought about breeding when our season opens, would have no problem with them starting the season later (but with NO freakin days taken away!) in extreme north Alabama and could quasi get behind that change having a biologically sound reason for doing so. The limit reduction would be nothing but PC, liberal, feelgoodism bullchit that does absolutely nothing other than take away opportunities from law-abiding hunters, remove the motivation for folks doing habitat improvements and predator control to help the flocks, etc. etc. It would have way more negative impact than positive.

You make some good points Juggy. I'll add what I see from the hunters I know they kill a bird or two and move on to another spot, "leaving some for seed" as they say. Most hunters are not gonna kill every gobbler from a property even if they tried. I think the whole not enough gobblers to get the breeding done is total BS. Predators , predators and more predators is the biggest problem IMO.

I was sent a picture of one guy holding up three dead longbeards opening morning. It's an internal struggle for me trying to decide on whether or not to throw buddies under the bus and report them for killing WAY over the limit of birds.

Yeah, this is probably the only thing I disagree with in Jugheads post. Lots of more than one a days killed...

I find that rather intriguing (and equally disgusting). I know some outlaws, who kill lots of turkeys every year. Yet, I don't know anybody who will even think about shooting a second turkey from the same setup (unless they are outside of Alabama). They would much rather let the rest of the turkeys walk off in hopes of getting to call them up and experience them all over again on another day. Though these guys might break the limit, there is a very healthy level of self-imposed "ethics" associated with it (i.e. no more than 2 off of any one property/locale in a year, NEVER shoot more than one even if you called up 10 together, never shoot a jake for any reason, etc. etc.). These guys have tons and tons and tons of acreage to hunt and are rather conservation mindful, being super careful not to "hurt" any one property anywhere. They also have lots of time to hunt em and are really good turkey hunters. They would have to quit or go to another state pretty early most years, if they stopped at 5 that is. My personal opinion is though they break man's law, they don't hurt a THING as it pertains to turkey population dynamics. Their effects are just spread over too much property and the wild turkey's reproductive cycle is too unique to convince me otherwise.

I agree that predators, and the heavily intertwined and co-dependent habitat landscape, is the biggest factor that mankind can influence. I will always believe that the wrong weather during the most fragile/infant days for poults is the biggest factor there is. That one factor alone is the only one that has the potential to produce a large-scale wipeout of a year's worth of poults in one fell swoop. We have had coons, crows, snakes, possums, foxes, bobcats, and anything else we can think of for as long as we have had turkeys and I will always believe the Lord created the wild turkey with enough survival skills adaptation for hens to do what it takes to overcome those factors as a whole and at least keep a population steady over time, but there is nothing at all that can be done to change the weather when it counts.

I knew plenty of outlaws in Greene Co that would kill all three if three birds came in together if they could. And kill a bird in the morning and one in the afternoon....and one on the side of the road on the way home.

There were lots of folks that killed over the yearly limit EVERY year, damn near every one that Could...DID. I probably didn't know or know of a handful of hunters that had the time, places, and ability to kill over the limit that never did, always quit on the limit.

I think the number of folks that kill a limit , or over, is badly underestimated. I men, who is going to admit it on a survey????

I don’t usually post but I’m going to chime in here. I’m 36 and have been turkey hunting since I was old enough to tote a shotgun. Turkey hunters have been killing over the limit as long as there has been turkey hunting so nothing new there. I don’t believe it’s a big mystery why turkey populations are in decline. Predator numbers are through the roof, habitat is going away at a high rate, and the amount of people who hunt turkey is as high as I have ever seen. So right off the bat numbers in my mind should be in decline. Now add the legalization of decoys, and the onset of the tech age of hunting with trail cameras that not only take photos and scouts for you, but will send live pics to your phone.
Now take all that into consideration and add a whole new group of “hunter”, who has no knowledge of how to kill a turkey or respect for his quarry, but he’s got a shotgun and pics of four toms in his deer plot so he goes and slips in his shooting house and kills him a turkey. Except he might not kill just one he may see how many he can kill before they get away. He don’t worry about the limit cause he really just wanted to post his pic on Facebook with a bird and won’t go back hunting unless he gets one back on cam in one of his plots.

More good points Juggy, every one talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything. The wrong weather at the wrong time is a baby turkey killer for sure. However, Red tail hawks and even eagles have made a strong come back. There's no $ in trapping , nobody does it for $ like the old days. To a man turkey managers sing the praises of trapping in increasing the population . Several on here have told me it's amazing the positive impact that a serious trapping program can have.

Also now with new ammunition everyone is using ,I believe folks take a lot of shots that are too far, resulting in wounding surrounding birds that may not have been a target. I said all that to say this. Hunting has changed so I’m not against making some changes myself. I believe that I could get behind pushing season back a week, as much as I enjoy the now limited time I get to spend afield, to try to lessen what I described above and give these turkeys a little more time to split up.
I used to be as hardcore of a hunter as there was, but years of rising lease prices and increasingly crowded public land I just don’t go as much. A good year for me now is between one and three birds. But I have a hope of one day taking my boys and teaching them woodsmanship and calling techniques and watching them grow into hunters and stewards of the sport, which I hope endures. We as hunters control more than you think...