Proposed Turkey Hunting Changes

[baldopepper]

I just left the first of the WDFW meetings in Federal Way.  Specifically I wanted to see and comment on the options for the early fall and late fall hunts.  Here are the options they gave:
1) No change
2) Increase the length of the late fall season to overlap with the modern firearm deer season.
3) Increase the number of GMS's open for harvest.
4) Allow archers to take a turkey during their deer season
5) Some combinaton of the above.
Background for these proposals (in summary) is a increase in turkey populations causing numerous property landowner complaints.  It is an attempt to increase fall hunter participation.
Format of the meeting was an initial breakout to the various issue areas on the agendas to speak  one on one with the mgr. in charge of that issue area.  Well, there is currently no upland game bird manager so the waterfowl manager was manning this area.  Very nice gentleman, but by his own admission he was very unfamilar with the turkey issue.  He was bascially interested in just taking my comments and here is what I had to say.
1) Turkey populations in some parts of the state might be increasing, but specifically in  area 121 they are not only not increasing but are down rather dramatcially, yet the proposal is to expand the beardless only hunt in this unit?  He had no current numbers either way on populations in any NE unit.
I proposed a bearded bird only fall hunt, and a total discontuation  of the late fall season.  In keeping with their theme of increasing participation, I suggested that there will actaully be more turkey hunters go out on a fall bearded hunt, than currently go out into the beardless only hunting units. 
At that point, I decided that I was probably wasting my time and his (Nice guy but he would much rather talk duck hunting than turkey hunting).  Left my comment with him and left.
I guess my point is, that unless we get some comments in (you can comment online at  wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/regulations/seasonsetting)  we're going to see the rifle hunters, bow hunters and "shoot any turkey from the road" hunters continue to decimate our NE unit birds.  I was not happy with the population during the spring hunt, and I'm even less happy with the poult count I"m seeing over there this summer-hate to see them open the hunt up even more in the fall and winter. 
Kind of a disjointed post, but I hope those of you out there who see the turkey hunt as something other than a post scrpt to to the big game hunts will get online and comment or go to the meeting and comment.  I don't think anyone in the department really has a strong opinion anyway (with the upland game mgr. resigning) and a strong number of opposing comments may turn the tide. Couple of the deer hunt guys there thought it would be pretty cool to be able to knock off a couple of turkeys while they were hunting deer.  (wonder what they'd think if we proposed knocking off a couple of deer while we were turkey hunting). Just my 

[turkey slayer]

Thanks for the up date. 

[Turkeyman]

Ya lets just kill them all.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Well I am not much on the fall hunt ...but if they want to continue doing so then I would rather have them shooting hens rather than gobblers ... what I do not like about fall hunts is that the birds are in big flocks and the guys flock shoot ..wounding way to many birds and you add that to the winter kill and thats just devasting the birds ....THE MAIN PROBLEM IS THE FARMERS ...THEY DO NOT LIKE THEM IN THE WINTER MONTHS because they hang around tearing sheet up ....

[turkeydancer]

 
Also don't like the idea of opening it to deer, etc hunters ... if they want to hunt turkeys, let them do so with the same seasons, bag limits, and requirements of the turkey hunters ...

[bearpaw]

We already have a week or more overlap of early fall turkey during early archery or muzzleloader season each fall and another month of late season overlap with bow season. I can kill 6 birds in northeast Washington, including 4 in the fall, that's ridiculous.

I like the idea of increasing participation and spreading out the harvest to more hunters and we want to be careful and try to encourage this idea of expanded participation and get it expanded into other species seasons. Participation is an important aspect to the future of our sport.

With all that said, the current fall turkey killing sprees are wiping out our public land flocks and actually ecouraging flocks to move onto private propery where the problems occur. If there are landowners who are complaining, I suggest a program similar to what we have for crop damage by doe deer. The program allows landowners to get depredation tags for doe deer to issue to whomever they wish, best of all it takes care of damage problems on private lands without issueing tags valid for all the public accessible lands where no problems are occuring. The hunting on the private land discourages the deer from coming on the property where the damage is actually occuring. If a person takes a doe they must use their deer tag, so they are no longer hunting bucks that year. This program actually works out real well in all aspects.

So if the annual fall season take for eastern Washington was reduced to only one bird, I would agree with allowing a 3 day early fall season overlap during each of the early bow, muzzleloader, and rifle deer seasons. This would increase and spread out participation with more people killing one fall bird rather than a few people killing many birds.

All late fall season turkey hunting should occur only on problem private properties on which the owner has registered their name, address, phone number, and GMU where they are located with the Olympia office. A ranch name, phone number, and GMU could be listed online or given out over the phone. Leave it up to hunters wanting to hunt the late fall season and landowners wanting turkeys killed to communicate with each other. Run the late fall private land season into February and this will encourage turkeys to leave the properties experiencing problems and it will help protect our disappearing public land turkey flocks.

Summary

Fall Bag Limit, 1 turkey

3-Day Early Fall Turkey Season, during Early Archery Deer
3-Day Early Fall Turkey Season, during Early Muzzle Deer
3-Day Early Fall Turkey Season, during Early Rifle Deer

Special Late Depredation Turkey Season, Nov 20 to February 28  (on registered Private Lands only)



any thoughts.....

[Camp David]

Bear paw i like the idea of Damage hunts. i think that your correct in saying a lot of the population learns quickly where it is safe and where the food is (farms). Thinning out the "pests" will leave the "wild" birds to survive. With all of that said i still like the opportunity of bagging a tom while in my tree stand deer hunting. I remember hunting 124 when there was no turkeys.

[baldopepper]

I agree Bearpaw, in fact, you are bascially stating what I said when I actually went on line and filled out comments. The idea of throwing entire game units open to the taking of 6 birds  in an attempt to quell site specific landowner complaints is not good management. I suspect many of these complaints come from landowners who allow no or limtied access or are bordered by landowners who allow no access.  What is happening is the birds that live on public or landowner accessible property get hammered, and the problem birds go on being problem birds.  Extending the season to allow deer hunters to even further hammer these birds is just plain crazy!!  Not that they'll listen, but I did bascially parrot your ideas and I hope others will get on line and do the same.

[CedarPants]

I agree Bearpaw, in fact, you are bascially stating what I said when I actually went on line and filled out comments. The idea of throwing entire game units open to the taking of 6 birds  in an attempt to quell site specific landowner complaints is not good management. I suspect many of these complaints come from landowners who allow no or limtied access or are bordered by landowners who allow no access.  What is happening is the birds that live on public or landowner accessible property get hammered, and the problem birds go on being problem birds.  Extending the season to allow deer hunters to even further hammer these birds is just plain crazy!!  Not that they'll listen, but I did bascially parrot your ideas and I hope others will get on line and do the same.

[Tom Tamer]

I agree with Bearpaw also and said basically the same on the survey. Again it's the bird causing the problems that are increasing because the'ye not being hunted , while the public flocks are decreasing. The WDFW wants the complaints from land owners to stop and if that means by killing all the turkeys then they'd be happy. I personally think that those in charge would love for the birds to just go away.

[Turkeyman]

 

[buckcanyonlodge]

Whats wrong with trapping and relocating the birds to suitable public habitat?? DUH?? That is one reason we have the increased numbers of birds where there were no birds before. No more relocating says the Wildlife Dept.  Kill Kill Kill. Sell tags   Sell tags  Sell tags.. By the way, just got back from the meeting in Spokane.... What I heard the most was " The governor said we can't address that or the commissioners say they will not address that issue....

[CedarPants]

I was there last night as well at the Spokane meeting and spent quite a bit of time speaking with Joe McCanna from the WDFW (he was the one fielding questions and comments about turkeys). 

I listened to others for a while talk about the proposed options (increase season length, allow rifle hunter season overlap, allow archers to take a turkey, opening up more GMU's, etc).  There seemed to be a strong opinion of NOT allowing rifle season overlap with turkeys, but an overall opinion of "how can we kill more turkeys?"

When I finally spoke to Joe, I had basically the exact opposite stance than he had been hearing for a half hour or so.  I told him that in my opinion we are killing too many turkeys and are targeting the wrong birds.  I expressed my concern that the current management plan has created a situation where the private land nuisance flocks aren't being targeted in the late fall/winter while public land birds are being wiped out and/or are relocating to private land (where they in turn subsequently become nuisance flocks). 

I went on to explain that it was also my opinion that the numbers the WDFW put out each year about the flocks increasing aren't really taking the entirety of the situation into consideration - being that while yes, the population can be said to be increasing when looked at from the perspective of entire GMU's .... but that in a lot of places the public land bird populations can be seen to be declining due to overhunting and relocating to private land.

I was impressed at the level of attention Joe was giving while I was talking to him, and when I finished I was happy to hear him say "I completely agree with you".  He seemed sincerely interested to be hearing this point of view and became very engaged in the conversation with a seemingly "how can the WDFW fix this" type of attitude.

I brought up the possibility of organized youth hunts targeting the nuisance flocks as a means of increasing participation while at the same time attempting to better manage localized areas instead of entire GMU's.  He explained that the local WDFW offices keep a list every year of landowners who have reported nuisance flocks and that we can call the office anytime to get a list of these landowners.  I personally wasn't aware of this, so it was good to hear and he strongly encouraged it.  He also liked the youth aspect of this and suggested hunters take the time to suggest this via the comments on the online survey.

There were some other interesting conversations regarding other topics, I'll post them in the appropriate categories

[baldopepper]

Nice job Cedarpants!!-glad to hear they're hearing from us both at the meetings and online. I did'nt know they kept that list either, I'll be interested in seeing it. 

[CedarPants]

Nice job Cedarpants!!-glad to hear they're hearing from us both at the meetings and online. I did'nt know they kept that list either, I'll be interested in seeing it.

Thank you baldopepper.  I should note as well that he made it a point to make everyone aware that those lists will contain reports from landowners in areas that can and cannot be hunted.  That said, he stated the offices should be able to easily provide the info on the areas that can be hunted