I point that out because iffin you make a incentive system like this a reality……and I think there’s a case that it really makes sense if done right……You don’t want to be awarding “1” gobbler tag for the price of 0.3 produced……..You want to create the incentive time frame at a bare minimum of 1:1……..But what I’m saying is that if we had a system with a 2:1 ratio then the benefit of awarding the tag FAR outweighs the impact.....If you could make it 3:1 then you're stupid not to do it.....no offense.

February is prime time for trapping most predators
The coon rut is in February and boar coons are on the move
I know last year I caught 19 boar coons in less than two weeks and the same amount of coyotes that were mostly male
Trapping predators before nesting season is always best
I know habitat is a huge plus for nest and poult survival but if a good habitat is overrun with predators then habitat means nothing

I’ve been looking at the coon harvest number compared to the turkey harvest numbers by year during some of the most stable years from 83-04…..taking into consideration the man hours hunted and that there will be a couple year lag time between the coons being trapped and the change in harvest...... and it would appear to me that for roughly every 10,000 coons trapped or not trapped….. the number of turkeys killed goes up or down by 5,000 birds…….In other words what this is suggesting is that for every 2 coons that are trapped there is an additional 1 gobbler produced……Heck, let’s just play it conservatively and call it 5 coons to 1 gobbler produced……That would mean that if you had an incentive program trading 25 coons per gobbler tag you would be producing an extra 4 gobblers for each one assuming the tag is actually filled…..If we used that real 2:1 ratio it would be more like 9 gobblers……The point being that it seems like a no brainer to offer hunters extra tags at that exchange rate. I really think you could just make it something like 10 coon tails for ALL additional tags and it work out great.....It would just give folks a little bit more of an incentive to keep trapping 10 more and 10 more. I could easily see folks turning into a competition.

For what its worth....If decoys were made illegal…..a trapping incentive was implemented…..and some kind initiative was taken to fix the fire issues…….then I’d make turkey season March 15 – May 15 statewide and go back to a coon trapping season of Oct 1 – May 15

Keep in mind here that the guy who goes out in Oct….Nov….Dec….and hits it wide open with intent of trapping 50 coons so he can have an extra 5 gobbler tags has “paid for” those tags already come turkey season whether they get used or not…..I’d bet you would probably have at least half of all those extra tags that were “paid for” just go unfilled. I also bet that come Oct 1 every serious turkey hunter in the state would start having a couple DP’s stuck out behind their house running 24/7…..If they couldn’t do it behind their house they would start sniffing out the closest drainage where they could get 10 easy tails, etc…..and this is how everyone would work together to benefit the whole without “trapping” having to be such a cumbersome endeavor for each individual. How hard would this actually be to implement??

I hesitate to post for fear of encouraging you to post more but.... The only "fire issue" that needs fixing is that we need MORE of it - anytime of year. And the only good thing to come out of a coon "bounty" would be that the roads wouldn't have roadkills on them anymore.

I don’t believe that would make enough of a difference to matter in the grand scheme of things……The benefits from the thousands of coons and possums that would be trapped would far outweigh any minimal amount of coon roadkill that folks took the time to mess with. That’s really not a good excuse to dismiss the idea of having a bounty system. The road kill thing is a simple fix…..If you set the rate at 10 coon tails per extra tag and you think 20% of the tails submitted are from road kill….. then make it 12 tails per tag…..Problem solved……Correct??

How much does "age structure" impact the situation with gobblers???......Because I'm betting that when decoys were legalized we altered that.....I'm guessing that there were more older birds present before decoys.

CNC, do you Turkey hunt?

Yeah some, not as much as deer hunting……I probably enjoy the management aspect of either more these days….

How does someone come up with a coon harvest?

My wife would be mad as heck if she sees a coon tail near her vacuum sealer!

Then you need to “manage” how to figure out that GC is unreliable for your ramblings.

Things are getting DRY and we're having pop up thunderstorms quickly moving across dry areas firing off lighting. This would have been good timing for a "natural burn" to occur.....wouldn't you agree??....

Yes, small storms that miss rain in one area but spark a fire is an excellent way to get one going now! They survive the night pretty easy. It is getting dry - enough that we called it off this last week until we get a good rain. We agree again!!

I didn’t call it off! 😂

But....but......I thought I remember you saying that "every day is a good burn day".......

Good for burning the neighbors! You must be confusing me with John Stivers

That and macon county thieves made off with my 16' trailer with a 35 gallon aluminum fuel tank and pump mounted on the front (orange custom made tailgate) as well as the Grizzly 800 4-wheeler with tall tires, power torch mounted on back rack, polaris ranger 800 xp with a 50 gallon skid water tank and 5 hp pump in the bed and my hand torch last week. probably cost us $30,000 to replace rig. I hope the thieves get buried where they are never found.

I don’t think $30k will touch that Gobbler!

That makes me nauseous just to read it. We’ve dealt with our fair share of that too in bullock. Locals will steal the paint off your tractor. We’ve cut down on it quite a bit with cell cameras.

Hate to hear about that Gobbler.......I've had my eye out since Jawbone posted about it but they've probably already sent it to Atlanta or have it all hid somewhere.....You cant ever let your guard down around here. Someone is always looking for an easy score.....There were some guys running high speed cable down hwy 80 not too long ago that had a bunch of their equipment stolen in the same manner one weekend.....Someone just hooked up to their trailer and drove off with it.