After the first ten days. Is this a recent decision, or has it been the plan for next season all along? I don’t mind, and wouldn’t really mind if decoys were outlawed all together. I just wasn’t aware of the restriction.

Been talked about for months

If you are just seeing this, then make sure to catch yourself up on season dates and bag limits for both public and private land.

Whats that term mean, bag limit?

I don’t worry about it bud, I ain’t got enough on my place to get close to it with two boys that like to hunt.

Haha I heard that. I wish I had two boys that hunted with me. Congrats👍🏻

Just a suggestion

Come on down and sit with one of em, if you can put up with a ten year old that can’t keep his butt still for sixty seconds

Come up north next season Joe I’ll give you one of my neighbors tags

That is a generous invitation, and I just may take you up on it. We’ll talk closer to season.

I ain’t as selfish as I use to be, as long as I’m part of the war party I’m ok with it. Maybe they’ll be thick

Alabama was the last state to make using decoys legal and now the first state to make them illegal to use in at least the first ten days. My hats off to them.

It's how many you can fit in a bag right?

I guess I need to read the regs more than once per decade 🤷‍♂️😜

Yep! I like to use the big contractor bags.

I dont understand why anyone would want to OUTLAW decoys. It is your choice to use them or not. If you dont like them dont use them , if you do than go ahead.

Its like dam democrats on here with some things. The DEMS dont like firearms so THEY want them outlawed. They dont want ANYONE to have or use them. A lot like some of you here with decoys.

Why do you feel since YOU dont like them than NOONE should be able to use them? Ive got a better idea , you DONT WANT to use them than dont! And if I WANT to I can. Pretty simple.

"Dont tread on me". Yall seen that flag. It means about all RIGHTS not just the ones you like.

It is my choice to use them or not and I sure dont need some idiot at Alabama Fish and Game with a moronic "Dominant Gobbler THEORY " to decide if and/or WHEN I can use them. Most idiotic thing Ive ever seen. "You can use decoys, just not for the first 10 days " . What a bunch of power hungry control freaks to pass the law and how blindly some of you agree with it.

Next it will be TSS because it reaches too far and is not PURIST like shooting number 6 or 8 shot and waiting until they were into 25 to 30 yards like when I started hunting them 47 years ago. Gives you guys an unfair advantage shooting so far. Ruins the sport.

Yep and Blinds should be illegal too because it gives hunters an unfair advantage.

And calls too. When I started you took a piece of raw slate and made a corn cob striker. You made a "snuff Can Call" or your own wing bone call.

You wore green or brown pants and a green CPO jacket as there wasnt camo. All you CHEATERS using commercial games calls, the latest camouflage and the likes. I think it should ALL be outlawed and if you dont know how to make your own calls and run them then sorry for you!

See where I am going? Once you start "Outlawing" stuff where does it stop? Yall WANT more regulations? Did yall vote for Biden too?

SMDH.

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Great post, Here4Fun.

Before the decoys were legalized, along with scopes for muzzleloaders, there wasn't a ton of outcry about decoys other than from traditionalists.

"This ain't the way to hunt turkeys!' they clamored, although Alabama was at the time one of only a few states (if not one of the only) to outlaw decoys. Their cries weren't about harming populations or anything other than "This ain't right!"

And yet they'd giggle and wink and nod about "a little yellow helper" or sticking a Coca-Cola can on a stick in a field of chufa to mimic a turkey.

It was about what they wanted, instead of having options. It's an option to use a decoy. It's a option to use a scope on a muzzleloader, or to use an inline muzzleloader, or to use a .410 or 20-gauge for turkeys instead of a shoulder-breaking 3.5-inch whoppermagnum 12-gauge, or myriad other regulations and OPTIONS that we can choose from.

And yet now without any hard data whatsoever, nothing more than anecdotal "we're not seeing as many turkeys" reports and people wanting to blame SOMETHING for that, we have more regulations and restrictions on hunting. There literally is zero hard, firm, confirmed, provable -- big word there, PROVABLE - evidence that not using decoys for 10 days will have any effect whatsoever.

But sure, let's add another restriction.

Never let a crisis go to waste so more regulations, rules and "Do something!" feel-good tactics can be imposed.

Let me flip the script here for you. Since you all against “outlawing” stuff, why not make rifles legal for turkey hunting. Let’s include gobblers as legal game over corn feeders in deer season. For that matter, we just as well as shoot bearded hens too. Well shoot, just make it legal to shoot 5 turkeys, don’t matter sex or age. Why even have a season? You should just be able to kill 5 turkeys on your annual license. If you want to wait til spring to fan them up, have at it. The rest of us gonna shoot them with our bait permit in hand over our corn feeders.

No need to hinder anyone with laws that makes the hunting more difficult.

Using decoys makes the hunt easier. If it didn’t, people wouldn’t use them. As far as why would anyone want them outlawed, I’d say to keep from cheapening the experience. Every 20 year old with the back end of their truck lowered and stickers on the back glass don’t need a hero shot on FB sitting next to a gobbler and a gobbler decoy.

I use them sometimes, but I dang sure don’t have to have one to kill one. The ones who do, to be quite frank, I hope they take up bass fishing.

But that is your option, your choice to make. Removing the option because "I don't like it!" is not reason enough to impose a ban and that's the only reason a lot of hunters want decoys gone or restricted. They just don't like it.

Any wildlife decision should be made first and foremost with the biology in mind: is it harmful to the resource, or will it not harm (and possibly benefit) the resource?

Anything after that should be secondary.

We could parse your others individually:

-- rifles for turkeys? That's a clear safety issue. We already have f'king dumbasses who shoot other turkey hunters with shotguns.
-- turkeys around deer feeders? Meh, talk about easy and a true detriment to the resource. That's a no-brainer to prohibit that.
-- bearded hens? They're a genetic anomaly just like albino deer and probably should be taken out of the pool. No big loss.
-- killing 5 turkeys on your annual license? That would be fine with me, to be honest. Why is April 3 so sacred when I could shoot the same gobbler on October 11? I seriously doubt there would be any detrimental on the population if we didn't have a spring season.


As for "we don't need any laws," that's silly. It's the unnecessary restrictions and the "let's do something!" restrictions that are useless.

We didn't need "official shooting time" for deer season. For eighty decades we got along just fine without it. But whoa, in 2015 or whenever it was, we suddenly needed to become like all the other states and by golly have "shooting time" for deer. It's unnecesary and idiotic. But it made someone feel good about doing something - just like the 10-day decoy restriction.

Respectfully Clem,
It’s your opinion that outlawing decoys is restrictiv, and it is. The law is intended to make it harder for folks to kill a turkey by not giving the aid of a decoy.

Personally, as you pointed out my opinion, I’m fine with it. I’d much rather them impose those type of restrictions than move the season dates, reduce the limit, etc.

I also like the fact that it takes some of the folks who aren’t die hard turkey hunters out of the game. It’s not that I don’t like decoys, it’s that I feel we’ve allowed the game to get cheapened to the point where some of this is necessary.