The state of Sumter National Forest

[WNM]

1 bird limit is how you start to fix it. I’m as mad at them as ever. I’ll prob try to shoot the limit. But take draw hunts for example. We open them up to oos hunters. Correct me if I’m wrong. Drop oos and residents’ limit to one and watch what happens. Half the yahoo’s and I stagramers will stop. Good start. Kills will go down if limit is one. Get rid of all decoys period, not strutter ALL, unless you’re hunting with a child that is shooting a gun. That will eliminate a lot of other mediocre and non hunting non skilled people from killing turkeys. Tell me where I’m wrong. Turkeys will adapt. There are turkeys living in Greenville city limits right now. Yes I’ve figured out how to kill them already but don’t want the trouble I’d get in.

I think I agree on all points. I certainly don't want the limit to go to one, but we might get to that point when nothing else works.

The turkey draws hunts are as bad as the duck draw hunts now. I think we were drawn on year 5 of ducks (being picky with sites and times). We were not drawn on year 4 of turkeys this year without any site or date discretion. I will not bother putting in again once our points are used up when we are drawn.

[Sportin' Woodies]

The 3 bird limit did nothing to help population numbers in game zone 2

[FEETDOWN]

How to admit you were hunting during turkey purgatory without admitting you hunted during turkey purgatory.

Ah yes, "turkey jail"

I lost count of how many shmucks I saw posting on the Instaface about being in "turkey jail", or "turkey time out". Ya know what all those people did? They called their buddies that can't get out of their own way and took them to kill a turkey. You know, RRR and such.......

Just another way for the low self esteem crowd to receive their social media validation.....

[Simple Man]

This all sounds like one more thing I am not supposed to be happy about. Y'all racking up a hell of a list lately.

[BigBrother]

This all sounds like one more thing I am not supposed to be happy about. Y'all racking up a hell of a list lately.

I've been scanning the thread for more corporate products I am supposed to be boycotting. Havent hit on anything yet though.

[Duck cutter]

The 3 bird limit did nothing to help population numbers in game zone 2

This is true

[MC]

The 3 bird limit did nothing to help population numbers in game zone 2

I would say that is also true in the places I hunt in game zones 3 and 4. The only places I am seeing where numbers are stabilizing or increasing are areas that are voluntarily restricting the take to less than what the state allows in conjunction with efforts to increase nesting and brood cover.

[fro]

The govt shouldn't be responsible for your hunting pleasure.
If you want to hunt, enjoy what you do have on public and not what you don't have or go lease something.
There is no growing lease culture, that is something you came up with to justify not leasing land to hunt on I would suggest.
There have been decades in SC where land is leased for hunting, this is not a new or growing phenomenon.

You gotta pay to play!!

[JimmyD714]

The govt shouldn't be responsible for your hunting pleasure.
If you want to hunt, enjoy what you do have on public and not what you don't have or go lease something.
There is no growing lease culture, that is something you came up with to justify not leasing land to hunt on I would suggest.
There have been decades in SC where land is leased for hunting, this is not a new or growing phenomenon.

I never said they're responsible for my hunting pleasure. But we are paying them to do a job and that job does include proper management of publicly huntable lands.

Since SCDNR doesn't actually manage it, why did they adopt it into their WMA program? National Forests are already open to hunting as I understand it. Was that just so DNR could make sure we can't hunt there on Sundays?

[JimmyD714]

This all sounds like one more thing I am not supposed to be happy about. Y'all racking up a hell of a list lately.

I'm happy to have it to be honest. I believe we met last April when I killed one near camp the day before TFT showed up to talk to all of us. So it hasn't been all bad to me.

The land sucks and is poorly managed but at least its big. After 4 seasons here I'm figuring out how to hunt it and I'm killing, or at least seeing, more than when I first moved here.

I wish our DNR cared about public land hunting but they don't. Plain and simple. I'm hopeful that will change someday but in the meantime I'm making the best of what we have and saving to buy my own land.

[Sportin' Woodies]

The state has no problems collecting revenue off of the stupid "gun must be in a case" laws

But only on gravel roads. If it's paved, you don't need to have it in a case.

Fuckin govt....

[ShortMagFan]

The lack of gobblers is something more than just habitat shortcomings.

Habitat isn’t the only thing. But it’s at or near the top of the list.

[TheVisorGuy]

Habitat isn’t the only thing. But it’s at or near the top of the list.

Yep

[scatter shot]

The state has no problems collecting revenue off of the stupid "gun must be in a case" laws

But only on gravel roads. If it's paved, you don't need to have it in a case.

Fuckin govt....

Times have certainly changed since the 80s.

I know a guy that used to hunt WMA in Fairfield County back in the day. He usually killed 2-3 deer a year and let many more walk each year. deer were very plentiful then. He was leaving camp Sunday afternoon and was still on the rock road about 2 miles from the paved road. A bourbon and water in the cupholder and a loaded rifle uncased on the front seat.
This guy, supposedly, stopped on a downhill slope overlooking a creek bottom and was rolling a doobie when he looks up and sees a brown LTD on the other downhill slope across the creek stopped in the road. The guy stashed his weed, puts his drink on the floor board and starts rolling down the hill when the other car punches the gas, blows across the bridge and comes to a sliding stop in front of the guy's truck blocking the road.
Two GWs jumped out and approached, a little small talk and asked for permission to check the bed of the truck. Finding nothing to warrant a further investigation, they got back into the LTD and drove away.
The guy supposedly finished rolling his joint, took a sip, lite up and enjoyed an otherwise uneventful ride home.

True story. Supposedly.
Yes, times have changed.

[Clippedtoe]

I agree with everything you said except reducing the limit to 1. Let's just get rid of decoys altogether and that will do the job of reducing the total kill. Bet you at least 75% of every season's total kill came from decoy usage.

Also, somewhere around 92% of the turkey kill comes from private land. So if we're just talking about public land usage, believe me there aren't a lot of guys killing 2 or 3 turkeys on our public land. Unless they have strutter decoys. Eliminate those and we'll save a lot of Toms.

So you want to keep your limit the same while effecting those that use decoys because they choose to got. I don’t agree. If you want to lower the kill number lower the limit for everyone period. Move the season back to the projected peak nesting date of April 9th. 3 week season goes out may 1st. Stop killing gobblers before hens go to nest. Doesn’t help that turkeys have gone from a 2 month nesting season. 15-20% predation compounded over 4 months is more than 2 months.

[JimmyD714]

So you want to keep your limit the same while effecting those that use decoys because they choose to got. I don’t agree. If you want to lower the kill number lower the limit for everyone period. Move the season back to the projected peak nesting date of April 9th. 3 week season goes out may 1st. Stop killing gobblers before hens go to nest. Doesn’t help that turkeys have gone from a 2 month nesting season. 15-20% predation compounded over 4 months is more than 2 months.

Removing the use of decoys will accomplish the same thing, more Toms getting to breed hens. The only people killing 2 or 3 gobblers in SC will be earning it, not tricking them with a strutter decoy that they can't resist (literally can't control themselves) the urge to go and fight.

[Clippedtoe]

Removing the use of decoys will accomplish the same thing, more Toms getting to breed hens. The only people killing 2 or 3 gobblers in SC will be earning it, not tricking them with a strutter decoy that they can't resist (literally can't control themselves) the urge to go and fight.

You’re only willing to give it up because you don’t use one and fill 3 tags. So you want to limit those that do to accomplish a conservation goal while still killing your 3. See my problem there. To me that’s bullshit sir. If limiting the number of turkeys killed is really your goal in the name of conserving the species you shouldn’t have a problem with lowering the limit for everyone to accomplish the same goal.

[FEETDOWN]

I certainly hope that noone in favor of banning decoys has ever shot a planted/baited dove field or guarded a corn pile with a .270 during deer season.....

[swampknob]

Isn't the argument that male decoys kill the wrong turkey and mess up the breeding process for that spring?

[JimmyD714]

You’re only willing to give it up because you don’t use one and fill 3 tags. So you want to limit those that do to accomplish a conservation goal while still killing your 3. See my problem there. To me that’s bullshit sir. If limiting the number of turkeys killed is really your goal in the name of conserving the species you shouldn’t have a problem with lowering the limit for everyone to accomplish the same goal.

I already know you're a troll from previous threads. But I'll reiterate my point - some have suggested lowering the limit. We've already done that. We've also shortened the season for WMA.

This was supposed to be an effort to reduce harvest because that's the DNR solution for everything - reduce harvest and reduce hunter opportunity.

My opinion is that it would be better to keep the already limited (by shortened season and not being allowed to hunt Sunday) WMA hunting opportunity as it is but make killing a turkey more challenging. That would still give us the 4 week season, allow us to continue turkey hunting if we kill one, but still reduce the harvest by not letting mature gobblers get sucked into fighting a strutter decoy. They'd have to truly be outsmarted, which is not an easy thing to do.

I've been working on one particular bird for 7 consecutive hunts. I'd rather not kill him than have to use a strutter to do so. In the meantime, he's breeding a lot of hens while he keeps winning the battles with me. I'm confident if I had a strutter decoy I'd have killed him the first time I saw him.