Thoughts on season opening date this year?

Saw this comment from a recent article where Sykes said:



For me personally, I think it made hunting a little more difficult as turkeys were farther along in their breeding pattern, which obviously was the goal. I wasn't a fan, and without actual data to support the move, I hope it goes back to mid-March, but it sounds like it won't

Nope, didn't favor the hunter, but Chuck is going to do and say what Chuck wants to do and say! And quiet frankly I wouldn't be surprised if there were not a larger number of turkeys killed that had corn in them because it is okay to bait for deer AND hogs! It makes for an easy excuse for having corn out during turkey season, but never let unintended consequences get in the way of an agenda!

Carry on.

This won’t end well

Heck they are already took 13 days away from us that hunt Skyline.

So starting season on 3/21 instead of 3/15 put the turkeys further into their breeding period? Wow Chuck. Very astute observation. You gotta have a wildlife degree to figure that one out 😂

Secondly, there were certainly a “boatload” of folks that hunted public land and a very small percentage of those folks killed turkeys. They sure did harass the heck out of them every day of the week though.

I thought they were a little early because of the weather, which put us a week behind where we were last year in their breeding cycle, maybe more.

so many turkey hunters had so much more time to hunt way overshadowed the changed opening date. Dumbassery at its finest.

https://www.outdooralabama.com/articles/put-asterisk-2020-alabama-turkey-season

That article was really strange; go to their website and read it if you haven't already. Chuck mentioned every bit of anecdotal information he could imagine as to why the harvest was up over 50%. It was due to the virus, due to his statements at the CAB meeting, due to the weather, even due to the season starting later. So fewer turkeys would have been killed if the season opened 3/15? He mentioned every possibility, except that perhaps we just have more turkeys. That doesn't fit the agenda, so that ain't gonna even be considered.

And then in the article they had to emphasize that poult recruitment continues to go down. And then in the next paragraph it said that 2019 jake numbers were higher than had ever been reported. So how do we get more jakes than ever recorded, and yet poult production is down? Those two numbers don't add up very well. It sure seems that they are determined to ignore any data that doesn't fit the current agenda.

Personal information is mostly irrelevant, but I killed a limit with less effort than ever in my 55 years of hunting them. I think that the Good Ole Days of turkey hunting are right now,. Chuck sure doesn't mind drawing conclusions based on his personal hunting experience, so I guess I can do it too.

One item that definitely impacted the harvest in a negative way was the explosion of the bull gnat population in south AL. I know if several hunters that didn't put forth much hunting effort in some places because of them, and I was one of them. I usually hunt a lot in Perry county, but I hunted just 2 mornings there this year. I got eaten up so bad opening day that my family convinced me I had the shingles. It did look like it. I will have to find some kind of netting before next year. That's assuming that they don't announce that turkey numbers are so low that they have to cancel the season.

Cause chuck is a pompous smug asshole. Plain and simple. And an idot moran

Chuck’s assertion in that article that the reported harvest is up because of his veiled threats rubbed me the wrong way. I have participated in the turkey hunter survey every year, but will not this year, and I’m gonna write them a note and tell them why. May not matter to them, but they just lost 33 Alabama mornings worth of data.

I didn't care for it, either.

"Start reporting or we may not have a season" is dictatorial bullchit.

Clem you got the dic part right

"Chit...all this data doesn't support the conclusion we came to prior to collecting it........let's just make something up, won't matter anyway, we can do whatever the hell we want b/c we were appointed, not elected."

I think it's crap ... not sure if it's my style or what but I usually have a lot of luck that first week of season, followed by a dry spell last week of march. This season basically started out in time of yr I would consider my least successful (well March 23rd - April1st ish)

That is almost exactly what I normally see. A really good 1st week of the old opener then a lull until about the 1st.

Chuck is an incompetent, indignant arrogant idiot!
Unfortunately our state agencies, these days, seem to reward and even celebrate incompetence.

Calling out Chuck , or any of his Lieutenants to explain why this isn't a major factor in this year's harvest. Oh wait, admitting to a couple of good hatches back to back and much higher jake numbers in '19 doesn't support dropping the bag limit. I'm betting Crickets

Yes it is.


Don’t worry guys the states computer model will make the right decisions for us.

Sucked imo, I missed the first week due to working in Florida. I literally haven’t hunted woods that weren’t greened up all year.

https://shannonoutdoors.com/p/double-guard-bug-tamer-plus-headnet-with-face-shield/

This is what I have used for the past 4 years, it's the only headnet that works on mosquitoes and bull gnats. I wear a fedora style hat to keep it off my ears and it's a little cooler that way, but it can be worn over a baseball style hat. Before the gnats wake up in the morning I don't wear it but once they start their feeding frenzy it goes on and stays on until I get back to the vehicle. Otherwise I wouldn't turkey hunt or do anything outside in the part of the world I hunt in.

Reporting what?

I hunt swamps and river bottoms with regular, open face nets and deet/ permethrin.....but a thermocell is my safety net.

Seems I’ve seen biology somewhere suggesting it would be better to open the end of March? As long as we lose no days, I’m fine with pushing further back, at least in the north end of the state....All the birds that were pure un-callable in the first 3-weeks on one of the places I hunt, all got suicidal to calling/working in the last three weeks of the season. Same birds. Same locations. Same setups. Anecdotal, but not the first time I’ve seen it. Too many variables, but tired of the state peeing up our legs and telling us it’s raining, over game management. Freaking 3rd world countries have more integrity in their G&F management than we do.

Same here, I didn’t like the early spring green up and warmer weather.

Sucked! Cost me an extra $300+ To jump the state line into Mississippi to get in the woods while birds were acting right.