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