I've been blessed to hunt the same tract of land every year for over 50 years and all of my experience says this is true. And it used to be what the state dcnr said was true, and I've never seen any evidence that proves that it isn't true. As I have said many times - forget about proving that hunting too early in the year reduces poult production. How about first of all finding evidence that spring gobbler hunting reduces poult production, period. I've never seen that evidence, and I don't believe that any exists. If they had it, we would be bombarded with it.

If spring gobbler hunting reduces poult production, it should be easy to prove that that areas with no hunting have much higher poult production rates. There are lots of such places. I asked Dr. Chamberlain on Twitter a couple of years ago how much higher the recruitment rate was on unhunted land, and he had no answer. He said he was starting a study on a military base, but I haven't heard any more about those results than I have of the years of study that he already has on the WMAs in GA that have a later start.

If you don't have as many turkeys as you used to have, it's not due to decoys, TSS, poachers, or any of the other things regarding hunting that we constantly hear about. It is entirely due to changes in the habitat. And the habitat is changed daily by a whole lot of factors - timber practices, farming practices, chicken litter, weather, and predator populations cover most of it, but there are probably others. I think y'all are starting to think exactly the way the state wants you to think when you talk about hunting methods ruining turkey flocks. If your neighbor kills a turkey using a decoy, that takes away the opportunity you might have had to call him up later, but I think it's very unlikely that is going to result in fewer poults in June.

Gobbler started this thread with an "If" the department wants to reduce the harvest. I understand that, but I don't think that should be the goal. I suppose their rationale is that they want to spread the harvest out among more hunters, thus keeping more people interested and selling more hunting licenses. There is no money for them in letting one man kill 5 turkeys. This is the force that is driving everything.

My observation is that turkey populations are as high, or maybe even higher, in areas with good habitat than they have ever been. One area that I hunt was devoid of turkeys this spring, and I think that was entirely due to the timber practices.