I certainly will pose that question, next weekend, at bear camp. I think it's a question worth discussion.

I personally am opposed to closing the season at noon. When I was a GW I worked mostly mornings, had to hunt a lot in afternoons/evenings. Lots of folks in that position.

With the way they manipulate the time now, there are a whole lot of people that can only hunt in the afternoon. It would be terribly unfair to them to knock them out of hunting completely.

A guy that is in a position to know what is going on at the state level as much as anyone told me that turkeys seem to be doing very well on private land; it's public land that is having issues. Why don't they just adjust the seasons on the wma and other public land and leave everyone else alone? I have never seen as many turkeys as I've seen this summer. I can't step out into my yard without scaring a turkey.

I’m also opposed to stopping hunting at noon for the reasons mentioned above.

The entire state of Missouri was daylight to 1:00 pm, prior to the big number decline they had about 10 years ago. The decline was attributed to several bad hatches in a row and weather related. Stopping hunting midday didn’t have any good or bad affect, before or after. That’s the version of the Missouri story as we knew it back then.

I went on a hunt in MO back around 2008 or so, and I've never heard as many Easterns gobble in one place as I did on that hunt. I hunted 3 different tracts, scattered over about 30 miles, and they were all loaded with turkeys. I killed my 2 easily, but I hated the state regs and also all the restrictions the outfitter placed on me, so I didn't go back for several years.

I think it was about 6 years later that I went back, and I never heard a turkey gobble on his land. I heard one gobble twice far away one morning, heard absolutely nothing the next day. All of those draconian regulations didn't make a bit of difference in the world. They won't help AL either. What they will do is discourage folks from managing their land for turkeys, and the inevitable result will be a lot fewer turkeys.

Government regulations do not produce turkeys. Private landowners produce turkeys. If you want more turkeys, do everything you can to encourage the landowners. Long ago, our dcnr understood this, and in fact, that's where I learned it. Most of the opinions I hold about wildlife management is what our dcnr was telling folks back in the 60s and 70s. They were extremely successful in getting that message out, and the result was that AL had good populations of deer and turkey long before our neighboring states.

But now we just wanna embrace the failed policies of the other states. I guess everyone reacts to peer pressure.

Charles Kelly understood this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^100%

What about Chuckie sikes😥

These are true.

It would give us all an excuse to be home at lunch and actually spend afternoons in the spring with our wives...

Is that a joke? If I wanted to spend afternoons with my wife, she could go turkey hunting. I don’t need anyone giving me an excuse to not do something I want to do.

Perhaps we could have morning shooting hours, too, like with ducks. That would help stockpile more gobblers.

Or maybe we have morning-only hunting and a 3-bird limit. We'd be up to our eyeballs in gobblers in just a few years just like the other states ... that also are suffering declines and problems, too, despite having morning-only hunting restrictions and 1- or 3-bird season limits.

It sounds like we're on the hairy edge of "We gotta just do something!" similar to the gun-control people after an event or the virus-control people. "Do something! It'll be better! Doooooo somethingggggg!"

Unless there is sound biological data that supports a limit reduction or hunting hours change or anything else related, tinkering with it just because, or to appease someone (or a group, like with buck limits and antler restrictions) is not how it should be done. If there is solid data, let's see and hear about it.

The bottom-line basic question always should be, "Would this be biologically detrimental or beneficial? Is this necessary or unnecessary? Is this based on biology and solid data or is someone applying pressure to just do something?"

If it involves money, companies or someone's ego then it should be ignored. Unfortunately, that's not reality.

In line with your statement is this quote:

“I would ask the Board to move the season starting date to as late as possible with a three-bird bag limit,” Sykes said. “I think Dr. Chamberlain showed that Arkansas is in a bad way right now. We’re headed in that direction. The sooner we can take proactive solutions, the better. I don’t want to kick this can down the road any farther. Thank y’all for saying you will take this up at the first meeting of 2021 and make a decision. It’s time.”

Wasn't entirely a joke. I love being with my wife as well, but turkey season is pretty short and it sounds like there are people out there trying to make it even shorter. I'd like to spend as much time hunting as I possibly can, and April is right around the time that the other half wants stuff done around the yard and in the house.

The crux of my statement was that no afternoon hunting kinda forces one's hand in fulfilling some obligations around the house that you might not exactly be predisposed to do. I wasn't necessarily directing that at you or anyone, just a thought

Well, heckfire. Why not just have "no turkey season" for five years to let things build back up?

If going to three-per-season is going to SaVe ThE BirDs! then by golly, we should all do what's best for the good of everyone and not hunt for a few years. That would just bump up things to hunky-dory status in short order.

And paint your toenails and trim your mangina.

Winston county has opened April 1st for at least 20 years. It’s possible to go ride for hours around Bankhead and not even see a turkey. There’s another area I hunt that’s completely opposite. It’s almost impossible to not see a turkey while riding around. Season opener has been normal and hunting is allowed in the afternoons. All I can go off of is what I see. You can’t tell me they have all the answers from a 5 year study. They should have been looking at Winston county for the last 20 years to see that a late opener doesn’t explode the population of turkeys.

I actually paint my mangina and trim my toenails. You got it backwards

After reading through this I think the answer is pretty clear. The described decline in turkey numbers has less to do with hunting and more to do with environmental and biologic impacts. Policy makers can change the limit to 3 birds and cut off hunting at noon but it won't have major impacts on the population. We know that and they probably do as well. But, blame it on the 1%ers (5 bird killers) or those that hunt in the evening and you've got yourself a winning political strategy.

BTW, I really like the 1pm end of the season in Missouri but not for anything to do with the hunting. It allows me to have more fun. Afternoons are spent fishing, frying, grilling, and sometimes being lazy. Sitting on the porch saying, "I'd go kill that gobbler hammering over there, but I probably couldn't get it done by 1 so yeah I'll have a beer" has turned in to an annual happening. I do think it is a silly rule and would never support any other states following it, but I'm kind of glad Missouri has it.

This is taken directly from the Missouri Department of Conservation Website:

By the 1990s turkey populations around the United States began to level out. A tenant of wildlife management is that exponential population growth is eventually curbed by predators, disease, competition for food and changes in habitat. Missouri’s turkey population had reached unimaginable levels, close to a million entering autumn, and flocks of hundreds of turkeys in winter were not uncommon.

Although turkey population growth flattened in the 1990s, hunting success peaked in 2004 with a record spring harvest of 60,744. With 98 percent of these birds being males shot after the peak in breeding, this level of hunting had little or no effect on future long-term abundance. Similarly, fall harvest had fallen over the years to a small fraction of the statewide population, translating to little or no effect on long-term abundance or the quality of the spring hunt.