I guess I have the unpopular opinion in that I think we need less hunter recruitment, or less of how it is being done today Too many people being brought in that are consumers and not managers. They take and offer nothing in return. They didn’t have to work for the experience, so they don’t appreciate it. They don’t think about how their actions, or lack of, will affect tomorrow’s resource and hunting.

Seems the turkey population and sport was getting a long just fine, maybe even better, before social media and everyone thinking they needed to recruit new hunters to save the sport. Before all this mess, to be turkey hunter you really had to want to be one. Lips were tight, information scarce, and you had to learn mostly through the school of hard knocks and field experience. As a novice hunter, a lot of times you may go a couple years before killing one. But when you did there was no better feeling in the world. You coveted it and would protect it at all cost. Because you had paid your dues, put in the countless hours and work it took to get semi good at it. Last thing you did was post a picture on social media or parade around town with him. You had worked so hard for him the last thing you were going to do was give someone else a freebie on information. When asked, standard answer was always “Ain’t heard or seen nothin”. You managed your turkeys and did everything you could to preserve them so you would always have them. I know a lot of hunters on this site think the same way and are good for the wild turkey and also our sport.

If we are going to recruit hunters these are the ones we want, although these types never needed recruiting to begin with. We don’t need the guy who watched a couple videos, bought his decoys and slays turkeys over chufa patches. Those types are consumers and offer nothing in return. Over 30 years I’ve hunted with a few like that and after a good hunt I’d ask what they thought and I usually got “Eh, it was ok”. These were also hunters who never worked for a turkey. They always went as a guest and had the real hunter do all the work. We don’t want or need these types.

I hope we don’t sell out the wild turkey just for increased license sales, etc. under the guise of saving it. But it seems to be going that way.