Numbers around here are holding pretty good and every single honest hunter I know is pissed - so there's that.

Is the season delay plan working or did I miss something? Whats your plan? I'm guessing it also solves nothing. You would certainly qualify for a job at DCNR at that point.

I’m think this somewhat parallels duck hunting. The explosion in hunters and old hunters bitching. Very similar. There is only so much resource and space so prices go up and the pressure to post kills on social media. Morals go out the window because of frustration.

Just like the express boat talks about duck hunting the same thing is happening to turkey hunting

There was two important points the bio named Larry stated

First from a biological standpoint the same number of ducks is being killed in Louisiana. Just fewer ducks per hunter but overall the resource is the same.

The other thing that was telling, especially about human nature. He said IF given the information that if limits were not reduced it would lead to the decline of the duck population if not implemented and possible closure. Would you support lowering bag limits. The overwhelming answer was no reduction in bag limits would be supported.

I’m sure he was making a point about hunters and greed. Greed is good but not when it’s unfettered.

But don’t you think if habitat was in better condition the coopers wouldn’t have as big of an impact on poults?

Did you even watch the video? Doesn’t sound like. But by all means keep rambling on.

To some extent, yes. It would help. BUT I spent 10 years following radio-tagged quail and their number one mortality factor in winter/spring was Coopers hawks. Research bears this out time and again. This was in the 90's when there were far fewer Coopers, especially resident breeders in, when??? - April - May - June. I have literally seen a nesting pair of Coopers focus on a covey before covey breakup and wipe them out - totally, to the last quail. Yes, this was poor habitat and in Alabama, not the "plains" of GA where 1) quail habitat is optimal, 2) Coopers habitat is minimal (hardwood drains) and 3) they are "controlled", sometimes aggressively. My thoughts now with seeing Coopers all over in spring/summer is that turkey poults are EXACTLY the right size for Coopers and before they can fly and early into flight stage they are HIGHLY susceptible. To top it off, turkey habitat and Coopers habitat are the same. Not so much with quail. Every Coopers nest I have ever climbed or monitored was in hardwood or mixed pine/hardwood near pineywoods.


Clipped this from a paper in the National Quail Symposium Proceedings, Vol. 3 [1993] "DeVos and Mueller: Reproductive Ecology of Northern Bobwhite in North Florida"
"It was also interesting to note that 47% of the 1985 mortality was associated with 2 nesting pairs of Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii) which, combined, accounted for 27 known bobwhite deaths (based on breastbone counts and not limited to radio-tagged birds) in June, July, and August. Bobwhite represented >70% of the identifiable remains in these 2 nests. Although survival of adults, in particular females, was not different throughout the summer, mortality in 1986 was spread more evenly through the season."

The other problem with these little bastages is they are smart and efficient. They are the cats of the hawk world. When they want something to eat they decide what they want and go catch it. Lots of Robins in spring - eat lots of Robins, Lots of quail, go to the quail habitat and get one. Ive seen them catch birds on a covey rise behind bird dogs - in front of hunters with guns, Ive seen them wait in a tree above my head while I flushed one for them (the quail didn't want to fly - they knew the Coopers was above them watching). Quail won't flush if they can avoid it because they know they don't stand a chance escaping a Coopers on the wing. Ive hunted with them with a falconer who flew them with a bird dog. They are elite predators and I admire them for that. Wonder why we had lots of quail in the 60's (Yes habitat was VASTLY better)? We almost had them extinct in the 60's.

Coons/possums almost gone flying cats need to be next?

😂☝️

Rambling? I’ve been pretty laser focused on what I would like to see.

You sound like you want the delay to be moved even further? Yes/no? In that regard, I think maybe you should watch again.

They covered a ton of topics that have been discussed on here by some pretty smart rednecks. You could re-write that entire video - change every time they said April 1 to March 15 - change every time they said April 15 to March 25th - and it would sound like my argument for south AL, instead of their study site in TN.

247 always spot on for our area - he kinda n the woods all time 😀

I killed way less due to season set up and as he so wisely said - it works for honest hunters - but our society is getting so weak and with no backbone n run b greed. We hav less n less sportsmen - bunch greedy out laws

I didnt watch no video 🤣🤣

Another question

Why are these town birds flocks expanding since for the most part they’re not hunted or not legally anyway. It’d be very light hunting pressure per say

I still think there is something to mature birds mattering in a flock. If not gobblers would just die at the of breeding season I’d assume

That's great info, and we can only wish that the people in charge would recognize it and seek a solution. It would have to be done at the federal level, and there is the tendency of all to just say that's impossible. It is with the current administration, but Biden won't be president forever.

And there's only one solution. As Stonewall Jackson said, "Kill them, kill them all."

I am not a biologist, but if you were a cooper hawk, and you came up on a group of poults that couldn't go far from their nest, why would you ever fly anywhere else or look for anything else to eat?

Common sense says hang out here and simply swoop down there and grab a poult any time you get hungry...I would think one hawk could kill an entire clutch of poults in like a couple days.

What's the annual mortality rate for grown hens?.....How do they typically die?

I’d imagine most die on the nest due to predation. I’m sure bigger hawks and eagles have their way with them.

It’d be really hard for me to believe that we’ve went from no coyotes to having coyotes everywhere and it hasn’t made a difference. That just doesn’t seem likely at all. I cant imagine a coyote coming across a nested hen and just moving on without messing with her.....

I ran over a nest bush hogging in June a couple years ago and the hen let me literally run over the top of her before she moved…..She came flying out from underneath the tractor and scared the chit out me…..It wouldn’t take much for one to get eaten doing that if she hung around too long when a coyote discovered it. At a minimum their probably running hens off of the nest

Had a friend of mine watch a Coopers hawk take down his hen decoy in a field while he was turkey hunting a year ago!

Well……if Cooper Hawks are the main predator wearing out the poults then it would mean that you have a limited window of time for Coopers to target poults before they grow big enough to no longer be vulnerable…..According to research Coopers have a pretty narrow size range for targets generally speaking….. There’s always those few outlier events outside of the norm.

As this concerns trapping nest predators and coyotes…..It seems like we would be better off trying to get 500 poults through that window of vulnerable time with the Coopers versus 50…..If those Coopers are going back to the same drove of poults and picking off another one each day then you need 5 more droves somewhere else growing out of the target size range during this time period……Overwhelming the landscape with as many poults hatching as possible in the shortest amount of time would give you the best chance of getting the maximum number of poults through that vulnerable size window. The fewer hens that have to renest the better…..Just like how a tight window for fawn dropping limits predation compared to a long spread out one.

Meaning you don’t want a bunch of coons and coyotes messing up those first nesting attempts.

Hawks are a protected species, correct? Or am I thinking of something else?