Good, I don’t have many turkeys so I guess I should be for this.
Like everybody was onboard for the 3 buck limit.
I like being on the winning side just every so often. It’s so rare.

I was opposed to the three buck limit...

I unfortunately was for the buck limit because I couldn't see the future turn-the-thumbscrews regulations and mandates, and shame on me for that.

Anyone who belives "it's just a bird or two" or "it doesn't really matter" or "it's only a few minutes of your time to check it" or "it's only $15 for a bait license" or "it's just a permit to use a bow or rifle," at some point down the road you'll wake up.

The waking up usually happens once the fire under the pot gets hot enough and you realize you're the frog in the pot. By then it's too late.

Not gonna solve your problem. If you believe it will - why? Not that we need another discussion on this topic. Already been a bunch. But it ain’t solving anything. Except an agenda.

I sure as heck was opposed to it and argued against it on here constantly. Made a lot of folks mad at me, even though I tried to just be logical with my arguments and never personal. I couldn't have cared less about shooting 3 bucks, but I saw it as the beginning of the end of the historic Alabama system of game management. It was, and I think everyone can see that now.

Reducing the turkey limit has nothing to do with "saving" gobblers. It is entirely about money and politics. I remember that one of the guys on the deer study committee said it was a "good first step" when the buck limit was passed. The turkey limit will be about step number 5, but don't think for a second that it will be the last one; they are just getting started.

Just wait until you see what the now entirely Democratic controlled federal government has in store for hunters. As the states around us fall into line, don't doubt that AL will too. If you care about this, write or call the CAB right now. The 13 people on that board have the power to stop it, and I know that a lot of them don't support it. They don't get many letters, so the few they do get make a difference. It puts them in a much stronger position if they can go to the next meeting and say that they have a bunch of letters asking for no more changes to turkey season.

A letter can make a difference. Storming the Capitol doesn't work.

PCP- No better way to put it than that! Great point-I'm going to write a letter- Where would I go to look for where to send it?

Clem has a link in the first page of this thread. I addressed mine to the guy who represents my district, and then sent a copy of that letter to all of them. I noticed that Chairman Dobbs is supposed to end his term in March. He is a big supporter of the Agenda, so I wonder how that will fit in with the timing of the next meeting. Anyone in the know? Will he be reappointed? It's hard to find out info on these things.

The 3 bird limit would be bad but that April first start date is what tears me up the most. Ive always thought the 15th was a touch early but best gobbling/hunting ive seen is about March 20 thru April 15th or so. After about the 15th there basically done most places.

Just saw this about Georgia

Word is beginning to circulate that regulatory changes ( season dates, bag limits ) are in the offing, most likely to begin next (`22 ) season. This is primarily in response to declining poult/hen numbers. The biologists have tracked a general declining turkey population in Georgia . That does not mean that there aren`t individual areas and properties that have a goodly number of birds. That`s not, however, how global population biology works.

Any of you Georgia hunters who haven`t heard of him, find some podcasts by Dr. Mike Chamberlain, UGA wildlife biologist and avid turkey hunter. He`s one of " us " . I was spellbound listening to him.

CAB info including who's on the board and their mailing addresses. No emails or phones listed.

Write the letter. Keep a copy for yourself. That way there is a paper trail that can be sent to them, referenced, shown at a meeting or, if need be, subpoenaed.

https://www.outdooralabama.com/about-us/conservation-advisory-board

Traditionally, the Chairman has been reappointed without much fanfare as to preserve continuity. Unless I'm missing one (and I may be), I know of only three chairmn during the CAB's existence -- Jimmy Hinton, Dan Moultrie and Dobbs. There may have been one prior to Hinton but I'm not aware.

I always wondered how the chairman got selected. I have my suspicions but they're just that.

Fun fact to know: as per Robert's Rules of Order, the Chairperson only is to vote in the case of a tie.

Thanks, Clem. In most organizations, the ex-officio members don't vote, but it looks like they do on the CAB. I think the extension service guy attends the meeting and votes on everything. What about the Ag guy? Does he ever participate, or is he like the governor who never has anything to do with it?

They do so much questionable chit it's not worth trying to keep up with it.

Moultrie brought in a woman for at least one or two meetings who was, essentially, the Sergeant at Arms and counsel on Robert's Rules of Order. I remember at one meeting in Eufaula she kept saying they couldn't do this or that, and a few Board members were getting frustrated.

HORRORS! They were being held accountable and told they couldn't do something that wasn't correct!

Dan took it in stride because he wanted them to do the right thing by Robert's. To my knowledge they do not have a Sergeant at Arms or Robert's expert anymore to help with questions about procedure, voting, who can speak and when, and so forth.

At one point there was a question to the AG's office about whether an "advisory board" was under the same restrictions for public boards inasmuch as it had to follow Sunshine Laws on records and meetings. Far as I know, the AG's ruling was that it was not and did not, and thus could essentially do what it wanted.

That's been many years, though, so it may have changed and I may be incorrect. I know for certain that the "foundation" established when Siegelman was governor was set up to be able to hide donations and where the money went. That was during the "We'll tell them what we want them to know when we want them to know it' era.

I’ve matured😜

I also have a new employer...

I strongly suspected that. Congrats on your new job!

Thanks for the additional info, Clem. If they don't have to follow the Sunshine law that explains a lot.

This paper is one of the MAIN arguments regarding the season changes across the southeast. I would encourage everyone to read this, especially the discussion portion where it is discussed that there is very little statistically sound data that concludes reproduction is declining. Only that the indices show it. A little confusing but bottom line is this information is NOT conclusive.
http://www.rnr.lsu.edu/bret/BretWebSiteDocs/43_Byrne_329-351.pdf
In ANY correspondence with the CAB or others, ask if there is any solid or valid data, especially NOT from public land, that concludes reproduction or populations are down..... or is it only folks with an agenda that are promoting the doom and gloom. Do we really think we are looking at a species in peril??
We have a turkey committee under the department - ever hear anything from them? What is their opinion? We also had an expensive and HUGELY touted Alabama Turkey Project - anyone ever hear any results from it?? We need a turkey committee composed of representative user groups, biologists, land managers, conservation groups, university, etc to look into this AND the data that is available and make recommendations to the CAB - exactly like we did with antler restrictions/buck limits. MHO

Look on page 22 of the Departments turkey report at the reproductive data collected in the last 10 years and tell me there is a decline in reproduction over the last 10 years.
https://www.outdooralabama.com/site...20Alabama%20Annual%20Turkey%20Report.pdf

If they push the start of season to April, we revolt !

Don't take everything Chamberlain says too seriously; he certainly tends towards hyperbole in those podcasts. In one of them he described how gobblers just went crazy gobbling in unhunted areas, while they nearly shut up completely in the hunted areas. That was in the podcast he did with the Meateater guy a while back. You can find a link to it by searching this forum, but I don't think I have misrepresented what he said.

Apparently, he was basing that on a recording device they had on an unhunted area in SC. In the SC report, they had a graph that showed gobbles per day on the unhunted land vs hunted. They averaged around 11 on the unhunted and 8 on the hunted. It wasn't anything even remotely like what he described in the podcast. They had a lot of info in that report on the unhunted land, but strangely, nothing about how much higher the poult recruitment was on it. Does anyone really believe they didn't look at that? Of course they did, but it didn't support the agenda so it wasn't mentioned. That report was still used for all sorts of restrictions in SC.

So do 3 gobbles per day more lead to more poults? They have no idea. Chamberlain is on Twitter; you can ask him yourself. Forget about proving that starting turkey season too soon can hurt reproduction; they have no proof that legal spring hunting affects reproduction at all. I remain convinced that I what I learned at Auburn over 40 years ago is still true - spring gobbler hunting has no effect on turkey reproduction, with the possible exception of areas with very few turkeys. I think they should restrict those areas and leave the rest of us alone.

Gobbler, thanks for the links.

More proof the population is down!! LOL!!

I took this video a few weeks ago on public land. They were between me and where I was in a hurry to get to, so I really had no choice but to bump them. But as you can see, the population is struggling bad here 🙄