Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs Regulations and changes in hunting culture

I wanted to comment in the earlier opening day thread, but didn’t want to get off point. I am happy we are seeing a shift back to an earlier opening day, but I feel like more can be done to protect the resource as well as enhance our hunting experience. Let me start by saying I’m generally against more regulations and I’m against government over reach, but something has to be done because we are on a bad road here:

1.) I think that the state should do more for the residents the way some of the other states have done. Why not ban non residents from public land for the first 10 days and only allow a non resident to kill 1 turkey each season? We might lose some revenue over it, but because turkey hunting has become the “in” thing to do, I feel like this will be minimal. Also, if I can’t travel to other states and kill multiple turkeys on public land, why should a hunter from one of those states be able to come here and kill 4?

2.) Ban video cameras on any public land or at the very least tax it to the point that it reduces it.

I’m sure I will come up with more, but these are some of my takeaways from talking to multiple people from multiple states and areas of Alabama. Also, I do not generally hunt public land, so some of this is conjecture.

a draw would be better than a ban. If more states start banning like FL did, non residents will end up without the opportunity to hunt opening week in a lot states. Which really sucks when it involves federal lands. Just make it draw, establish a # of permits, adjust accordingly after a few seasons. That way non residents still have a chance to hunt federal lands on opening week. I have a problem when that opportunity is completely removed.

I have said the second point for years. Make them pay $200 for filming on public land in the state. You can’t just make it like a slap in a wrist of 10 or $15 because people are profiting on our public lands. I have to pay overhead with my business, why are these people excluded in this?

Definitely agree on the first point as well. I was talking with buddies this exact same thing. Come up to North Alabama and just see the out-of-state trucks hammering every gate on opening day.

Yep. Skyline was crawling with TN hunters until their opener on April 13th.

Make it $1,000 or illegal. You can't place a monetary value on the amount of lost and degraded opportunities they've caused.

Covid and YouTube were the kiss of death for turkey hunting. Things have changed so much in the 20 years I’ve been hunting turkeys that instead of looking for out of state options to complete my slam, I am saving my money to secure long term leases/ agreements on local land to have a place to hunt around here. Also to improve habitat and opportunity on those tracts

I see Mississippi— on top of their public land non resident draw - is about to limit non residents to one turkey in March and two per year. If it’s really about protecting the resource then this same regulation should apply to all hunters. The non resident specific bans aren’t rooted in science or they’d provide statistics to back them up. The truth is very few non residents harvest one turkey, less harvest a second turkey and a fraction of that harvests 3. Tit for tat non resident bans / restrictions suck for all sportsman.

Tell that to Missouri!

Missouri didn’t have the statistics to back up there non resident limit. Arkansas doesn’t have the statistics to back up there non resident limit and id bet Mississippi doesn’t either. It’s tit for tat fighting between states and the dominos will continue to fall

“Since 2005, nonresident hunters have made up an average of 8% of total spring turkey permit sales in Missouri and have
accounted for about 9% of the total spring turkey harvest. These numbers have been gradually increasing. In 2025, nonresident hunters made up 9% of permit sales and 13% of
the harvest. Since 2005, Missouri has also asked hunters about problems with interference while hunting. On average, only 4% of respondents said they experienced a "great problem" with
interference. Despite the relatively low nonresident participation and reported interference, public interest in placing restrictions on NR turkey hunters in Missouri has been growing. This led to a new survey effort in the spring of 2025 that sought to understand perceptions associated with the impacts of nonresident hunters and preferences for various regulatory
options related to nonresident participation.
Survey results: Most resident hunters supported all the regulation options presented in the survey, while nonresident hunters opposed
any proposed changes. Among nonresident hunters surveyed: • 59% said they hunted only or mostly on private land (17% on land they own, and 42% on land owned by
family or friends).
• 25% said they hunted only or mostly on public land

The intent in Mississippi is to increase resident hunt quality. If you actually watch the commission meeting, you'll hear MDWFP state that this isn't to help populations. I see a lot of bashing on social media about this very point. Folks quick to criticize before they do their research. View the proposal below:

https://www.youtube.com/live/vT8-oyv-kUI?t=3635&si=HOFXQzxKIA2TObuz


Start at 1 hour in.(if link doesn't start there, it should).

Those arguing it won't have an affect are too focused on the number of turkeys "saved" and not on the reduction in pressure. If this is finalized, a non resident who kills opening week in March is DONE til April. No taking up a parking spot for a resident, no boogering more turkey making them harder to kill. No more camping out near a gate for a week "claiming" an area.

And in some areas of the state, leases have a high percentage of non residents. This will further benefit the residents of those areas.

We all know how pressure affects turkey. Mississippi is simply looking out for its residents.

As far as stats, I've saw the numbers. The 1 bird in March will get a lot of non residents out of the woods! And they can still come back in April and shoot another. A lot better than a straight 1 bird limit like Arkansas and Missouri have done.

Just remake it reciprocal with other states. Their rules are this so our rules apply to your states folks when hunting here.

Funny how this is playing out the way duck hunting did. Arkansas residents hated OOSs but the business loved them

It’s one thing to do this BS on public. It’s a whole other thing to do it on private too. Clubs and private land can govern themselves and should be allowed to do so in this case.

Because one state does something…..it doesn’t make it right. Arkansas and Missouri are in the wrong to limit non residents to 1. This in fighting between states is contagious.

I hate to see it spreading. We all will end up losing. People need to look at the big picture.

Every cell phone is a video camera now. A high quality one at that. You can make laws about not filming on public land, but every hunter will have a video camera with him. How are you going to enforce a new law when you can’t even enforce the laws we already have? You could make it illegal to post these videos and fine them, but then they will just lie about where they were when they filmed it. There will be an app created to get around it.

I am new to social media. I just got involved in instagram and facebook for business reasons. The amount of turkey hunters that kill in non conventional ways was alarming to me. Crawling and bushwhacking, hunting from shooting houses, fanning gobblers… I know folks should be able to hunt how they want, but no one can deny that the methods used to kill turkeys are changing drastically. I think the bag limits for all hunters, in state and out of state, will probably have to change as well to adjust to these methods.

Agreed. I often wonder how many less turkeys, deer, ducks, fish, etc would be killed if it was illegal to post on social media. I think it would be a very substantial. A MAJOR motivation for the younger crowd is getting that instagram grip n grin.

I agree that it is tit for tat to a point, but I do like MS’s way of thinking. Making a better experience for residents. I really don’t have a problem if another state wants to regulate when I can hunt or how many turkeys I can kill. I just want a quality experience on my home turf. If I want to go to another state bad enough, I will.

With the previous administration, this would have made your proposal moot: "We might lose some revenue over it". They weren't going to do anything that might cost the department a dime. I'm hopeful that the new guy isn't going to approach everything this way.

Lots of good info and opinions in this thread. I think it's good for the department to consider the needs of resident hunters when setting seasons. The idea of reciprocal regulations for oos hunters always seemed fair to me.

I have been doing this 39 years. I wish I could go back to that.

around me i need a ban on roost/limb launching

I have been chasing turkeys in South Alabama for 41 years now. Times sure have changed. Back then, it seemed like there was a turkey gobbling on every 100 acres of wooded property and rarely ran into another hunter. Now, it is another hunter yapping on every hundred acres and rarely run into a turkey. Leasing property for hunting wasn't the business it is now. I could pay Container Forestry $10 per county for a permit to hunt all the unleased property within that county. Every year, I would buy a permit for Pike, Coffee and Crenshaw. If I remember right, seemed like that was giving me 20k+ acres to hunt that was loaded with birds back then with very little pressure. Now, I spend over 10k in leases and still don't have the quality of hunting that I had back then for $30. I want all states to put their residents first when deciding regulations, bag limits ect. to protect the sport for future generations, uphold the quality of experience and increase opportunity for the residents first. If there's more than enough, decide on way to allow out of state hunters to also have an opportunity but Alabama won't. Too much revenue to be had on the hunting industry with license sales, gas, merchandise, hotels and restaurants. It's all about the mighty dollar.

Retaliatory regulations are not the way to go, and very short sighted. Many residents of all states are also Non resident hunters in others so to think you “win” is very short sighted.

That mindset will have everyone watching TV one day. When you main reason for something starts off with “because so and so does it to me” you are already off course from actual resource management.