Proposed Turkey Change

[charlie elk]

After a full day listening to 12 of WI finest wildlife biologists talk turkey I must say I am very impressed with their knowledge. Scott Walter has a much better handle on WI turkeys than his predecessor.
The fall drawing is going to be discontinued making for other changes in the way we purchase tags.
Proposals / Ideas discussed
1. All sales OTC with a season limit of 2 birds. - Yuck, but this is supported by a majority of the survey respondents.
2. Buy 2 permits OTC, when you register a bird you can buy another tag.
3. Buy 1 permit OTC, when you register a bird buy another with a quota system similar to goose hunting. When the quota is registered the season is closed.
4. Buy 1 permit OTC, after the season opens buy one per day, when the quota is reached the season would be closed in that management unit.

What was particularly interesting and disconcerting is the managers were concerned about turkeys losing their "big game" status, that which makes them special. There have been reports coming in from around the state about some hunters taking short cuts to kill their birds. For example, turkey drives, turkeys being flushed and shot on the fly, roost shootings; the thinking is because there are so many permits this is causing turkeys to be taken for granted. My impression is they are either going to start managing turkeys like pheasant and grouse, basically letting the turkey become just another game bird (doubtful in the short term) or the seasons and limits are going to be more restricted with higher license fees. (spring and fall)
Before anything gets changed there will be more meetings, discussions and hunter input opportunities. The earliest any change could take effect 2014, unless the legislature were to step in.

[dewey]

After a full day listening to 12 of WI finest wildlife biologists talk turkey I must say I am very impressed with their knowledge. Scott Walter has a much better handle on WI turkeys than his predecessor.
The fall drawing is going to be discontinued making for other changes in the way we purchase tags.
Proposals / Ideas discussed
1. All sales OTC with a season limit of 2 birds. - Yuck, but this is supported by a majority of the survey respondents.
2. Buy 2 permits OTC, when you register a bird you can buy another tag.
3. Buy 1 permit OTC, when you register a bird buy another with a quota system similar to goose hunting. When the quota is registered the season is closed.
4. Buy 1 permit OTC, after the season opens buy one per day, when the quota is reached the season would be closed in that management unit.

I think of the four options you listed above option #2 looks the best to me. My reasoning would be that it still in essence allows hunters to harvest almost as many turkeys as they wish but still allows a very lucky hunter the opportunity to harvest a double and then get more permits.

Dewey

[ticklishtompro]

1. All sales OTC with a season limit of 2 birds. - Yuck, but this is supported by a majority of the survey respondents.
2. Buy 2 permits OTC, when you register a bird you can buy another tag.
3. Buy 1 permit OTC, when you register a bird buy another with a quota system similar to goose hunting. When the quota is registered the season is closed.
4. Buy 1 permit OTC, after the season opens buy one per day, when the quota is reached the season would be closed in that management unit.

What was particularly interesting and disconcerting is the managers were concerned about turkeys losing their "big game" status, that which makes them special. There have been reports coming in from around the state about some hunters taking short cuts to kill their birds. For example, turkey drives, turkeys being flushed and shot on the fly, roost shootings; the thinking is because there are so many permits this is causing turkeys to be taken for granted. My impression is they are either going to start managing turkeys like pheasant and grouse, basically letting the turkey become just another game bird (doubtful in the short term) or the seasons and limits are going to be more restricted with higher license fees. (spring and fall)

I agree with Dewey that #2 would be the option I would like to see. Although none of them will really change the number of birds harvested in the fall, with the exception of #1. Either way there are not as many people out fall turkey hunting. It is like was said before half the guys with a fall tag in their pocket are out bowhunting and will whack a turkey if it walks by.
The other comment about it loosing it's "big game" status and peoples tactics have nothing to do with the number of tags given out. In fact I think it is the complete opposite. I have heard of people doing these things for a long time, and it is usually in their last ditch effort to fill that one tag that they got before their season is over. When you know you have more tags for another season you don't do the last ditch desperation tactics. That is my 2 cents on it. We teach our students in hunters education about this kind of stuff and call it hunting ethics. No matter what you do you will always have unethical hunters, and unfortunately the ethic thing to do is in the eye of each individual hunter out there. Everyones idea of what is OK is different.

Randy

[Gopherlongbeards]

I don't think its the number of permits available so much as the number of turkeys themselves. People in rural (and increasingly urban) areas see numbers of birds on almost a daily basis. When a "normal" person (i.e. not a turkey addict like most of us) sees something everyday, it loses some of the mystique. Just about every landowner I have spoken with about turkey hunting in WI (Zones 1, 2, and 4) has expressed something along the lines of there are too many turkeys, turkeys are so common shoot as many as you'd like, etc. The high number of birds is a blessing and a curse. Lots of birds to hunt and lots of opportunity, but at the cost of turkeys becoming commonplace (to normal people anyways).

Anyways, thanks for attending the meeting Charlie and posting a synopsis for the rest of us.

[WillowRidgeCalls]

I like no 2 also, but if there is a quota for birds in a unit then I hope they make the tags good for state wide usage. Lets say you filled your second tage the end of Oct. on a morning hunt and bought another at noon that day, and if you couldn't hunt that afternoon, say you worked second shift and expected to hunt the next morning, and the quota was filled that afternoon, then that tag would be useless? If they go to a state wide tag, then you could hunt another unit if the quota was filled in the unit you were hunting.

[charlie elk]

Number 4 more closely resembles what we have now, which I happen to prefer. The thinking here is by waiting to put the permits for sale until after the season opens gives more hunters an equal chance to buy what they want.
All of the quotas are to control the harvest by management unit as the tags would still be unit specific. So if a unit reaches its harvest quota and a hunter who has tags left; those tags are no longer usable.

[WillowRidgeCalls]

I can see a couple things wrong with it if they set it up that way. The biggest thing is that not everyone has the ability to check and see if the quota has been filled in that area until they get home. If a guy that works a distance from home and may want to stop off on their way home and hunt after work, but if they can't find out if the quota is still open until they get home then that defers them from even buying a tag, people won't put up with that idea very long, and it may cost them a few more hunters over time. At least now you can get tags and use them the whole season, without watching anything. The more problems a hunter has to go through the faster they say the hell with it, it ain't worth the troubles, especially for your older hunters and people that are interested in trying fall hunting. It doesn't effect hardcore hunters, but it will effect the people that just like to spend a day hunting. If they go by this only have the season open until that quota is filled, and not run a regular season dates, that will end a lot of the fall turkey hunting, because the DNR only goes by what the majority wants, and that will leave the door open for every anti and hardcore bowhunter to complain about every fall turkey hunter in the woods, you'll see seasons getting shorter and shorter before this crap is done. The way it is set up now is a good way to do it and they should leave thing the way they are, it works fine, but we all know how that goes!!!

[charlie elk]

Agreed, the only change needed or at least the one that started all this, is doing away with the fall drawing. Seems like a simple thing, just stop the drawing and let us buy license and tags OTC until they are sold out.
The WI harvest is currently controlled by the number of permits available. At current levels of participation a quota would never be filled, so I wonder what's the point?

[WillowRidgeCalls]

Agreed, the only change needed or at least the one that started all this, is doing away with the fall drawing. Seems like a simple thing, just stop the drawing and let us buy license and tags OTC until they are sold out.
The WI harvest is currently controlled by the number of permits available. At current levels of participation a quota would never be filled, so I wonder what's the point?

Well charlie, it's a state run organization. That alone will tell you where the problems are. Some yoyo sittin at their desk hears of a budget cut coming and decides to wreck something that works very well, just for an excuse to feel needed and important. After they screw it up, it will take 5 people and a couple years to get it working right again. It's a politics game, and we the hunters end up paying for it!!!

[eggshell]

Well charlie, it's a state run organization. That alone will tell you where the problems are. Some yoyo sittin at their desk hears of a budget cut coming and decides to wreck something that works very well, just for an excuse to feel needed and important.

WELL AS A FORMER STATE WILDLIFE EMPLOYEE I have something to say to you!


What I have to say is, I never understood how all the YO Yos made it to the top positions and in place to make silly laws and screw things up. I wish I could say you where wrong, but there is a fair amount of truth in what you say. On the other hand there are many hard working reasonable people working in the state wildlife departments too. Most of them want nothing to do with sitting in an office and are sportsmen and women. so the best people don't always make it to the power positions.

I have attended some meetings where the field staff just plain threw a fit over a proposed new regulation and where basically told to sit down shut up. The problem lies in the political ties to the high ranking jobs. With that said I do think most of the administrators are conscientious managers that have worked their way up from the field and are hunters and fishers. They consider science, field biologist recommendations and public opinion, but one politically appointed Yo Yo can undo a whole lot of good science. So is our world! The other side of this is that some silly laws come from public pressure of people with political pull. Those are usually Yo Yos too, that only have personal feelings and have stirred up a fervor among a group of outdoorsmen and very little or no science behind their agenda. For the most part the laws work and are appropriate, but every once in a while there shows up an "Oh my God what were you thinking" law. I recommend you speak up, as public opinion does carry clout.....being silent accomplishes very little in these situations. Good luck guys, i hope you get some reasonable changes.