I’m speaking from personal anecdote — I can only know what I observe where I hunt. But your counter is that I should account for what’s happening everywhere I’m not?
What I can tell you is this: I hunted 3 days at opener, saw one other resident truck, and over a dozen with southern plates. The CO who checked me said I was the first resident he’d checked all day — across 4 counties. That’s not anecdote, that’s a pattern.
I live in a state with zero NR restrictions, and I hunt out of state regularly. I’m not anti-nonresident. I draw tags for elk, deer, and antelope like everyone else. I gotta draw tags to hunt my own frickin ground in IL for gods sake. But turkeys are somehow a free-for-all in IN? That inconsistency is hard to defend.
Nobody is talking about banning nonresidents. A resident priority window or NR delay isn’t hate — it’s the same framework applied to every other species. If nonresidents are fine drawing tags and waiting their turn for deer and elk, turkeys shouldn’t be any different.
The division isn’t coming from residents who want some pressure relief on the only public land they have . It’s coming from attitudes that treat those concerns as illegitimate. It’s a problem everywhere. You think we’re just gonna all sit around and shake hands and say nah bro, I want non residents to have the same rights as me here as a tax paying citizen? No.
he was. 
