their season structure based on the “research”. Doesn’t matter if the research can prove anything or not, in relation to actual population gains - they changing anyway.

Going to north and south zones. Ok, no problem. Start dates reasonable I guess, March 22nd and April 1st.

Now the fun stuff. Fees for turkey tags (no details in what I read). And you can only kill one bird in the first 10 days in a zone. Well now...........

Probably will happen here within a few years with the tags and fees. Only a matter of time.

The "can only kill one in 10 days in a zone" is bullchit for anyone traveling to hunt. You can't go for a weekend and kill a bird on Friday and Saturday, or Saturday and Sunday, and then head home?

What a load of crap. I think Missouri has the same regulation. I was going to hunt up there a few years ago on a trip until I saw that, and didn't at all. So instead of getting a non-resident license from me they got nothing.

Yep, the 10 day rule sucks. It would be real bad for deep south Alabama hunters. One turkey in March, kill the others in April - nope, not around here. Zero turkey killed at my place in April. Zero. And it’s a pretty good area. But it gets tough, hot, full foliage green and crappy hunting by April 10th.

They can kiss my arse if they go to some crap like that here. I'll just outlaw it and hunt as I see fit

Easy there Cole! Remember the first rule of fight club?

When I listen to the MeatEater podcast, I really wonder if these guys are missing the forest for the trees. In their effort to preserve the "resource", they're totally taking the fun out of hunting. Not to mention the whole "liberty" thing that Americans once cherished. It's just lip service now.

As with anything, if someone could explain in a rational, logical way that this "10 day rule" makes biological sense I'd love to hear it. I'm all about hearing whatever rationalization is involved.

My contention is it impacts non-resident hunters who wouldn't travel to SC or Missouri or another state for opening weekend or opening day. If I could only shoot one turkey in 10 days before being able to return, and I don't want to hear all this "Oh, you should enjoy the camaraderie and spirit of hunting" bullchit because that's not always how it is in reality, then I wouldn't probably go. I might only be able to make it for that opening weekend, or make a long 4-day weekend out of it but not be able to return a week or two later for my second bird.

So they would get zero from me. Zero money, zero expenses for gas-travel-hotel-food-whatever, zero money from the feds for my license purchase. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

But that is based on money, not biology. Prove to me that in Missouri or South Carolina or anywhere that me killing a turkey on Saturday and Sunday before blowing out of town is biologically detrimental to the population in any way, and I'll be interested. If so, fine. I'd like to hear it. Same for any animal, fish, bird, whatever.

Bingo.

You should be happy with your one deer a year, though, that you had to draw a tag for and may not get a tag for next season but you should appreciate the experience and know you helped mankind.

That doesn't mean going out and wiping out 93 deer a year. But it shouldn't also mean clamping down to the point that Harry Hunter says "Eh, phuck it. I'll go catfishing and take up photography."

When I started turkey hunting, I literally used the 12 gauge that I already had, and went and sat on the family property. It turns out, I was 100% legal in Alabama, but in a lot of states I would have been breaking about 10 laws. It just makes me scratch my head.

That will hurt the outfitters too. These states that keep an early open date are going to rake in the money from people who want to hunt earlier. But on the flip side they will be packed even more on public.

I live in SC and agree 100 percent. The contention from DNR is that gobblers are being killed "too early in the breeding cycle and it is negatively impacting the successful breeding of hens, which in turn impacts poult recruitment. If that is the case, explain the record harvests from many years in a row when the season opened March 15. I could type a novel on this but don't have it in me. Poorcountrypreacher usually has some good dialogue for this kind of debate and generally what he says I tend to agree with.

I think the bottom line is there is just too many people turkey hunting now. There is a limited amount of resources and too many people trying to take from it. This is true for a pile of hunting/fishing activities.

“One in first 10 days” is the worst part for dang sure.

To put in perspective. Let’s use the same dividing line in AL for north-south zones as the deer zones. Let’s say you have a hunting tract just north of Demopolis, or just north of Selma. With a similar structure here, you could kill one turkey between April 1 and April 10, and the rest after that.

To heck with that!

I wish TN would go to the 1 bird in the first 10 days of season. I'm sure the reapers and decoy guys would hate it though...

I read the study summary that SC released for the public. In my opinion, the evidence they collected came nowhere close to supporting the conclusions they reached. It's disappointing when it appears that the scientific community is pushing what looks more like a political agenda.

They had research on an unhunted tract and found that it had one to two more gobbles per day than their hunted land. That's a long way from proving that hunting is damaging poult production.

Why? Would that be “fair”? Would the guys that don’t take vacation not have to worry about guys that care enough to actually take vacation for turkey season?

Yep - let’s make sure it’s fair.

I hate the word fair. There’s no more democrat used word out there than “fair”

How in the hell did you get that I'm worried about it being fair? I don't care if it's fair. Time off is not an issue with me either. I can hunt almost every day of our season if I decide to.

Then, why? Why support a dumb rule?

TN, just like SC, isn't going to push the season opening back. 1 bird in the first 10 days will at least curb the killing of several toms and allow hens to be bred.

The powers that be don't want to admit that our turkey population is in jeopardy.

So, basically, you are buying the “research”.

Your neighbor to the north (KY) has had a very late starting date and a two bird limit for years. Real, actual research given it’s actually implemented. Have they had a population explosion? Nope, not at all.

If TN adopted KY seasons, you’d be ok with that? They haven’t proven anything.

Neither has all this “research”.