Harvest numbers

[Goodtimekiller]

My best farms have been under water 3 different times since our seasons opened. Nobody to blame for that.

Keep that head in the sand....

Well who would you like to blame the floods on?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[2in1shot]

Following. What counties are those most affected?

 

[Southern Sportsman]

My best farms have been under water 3 different times since our seasons opened. Nobody to blame for that.

Keep that head in the sand....

Well who would you like to blame the floods on?

Spring flooding is a normal occurrence. It happend when the population was good and growing and it happens now that the population is poor and declining. Simply blaming weather for everything and refusing to address the declining population is ignorant. I think that's Setterman's point.

 

[John3]

I used to absolutely love to turkey hunt. I could hunt on my land and on public land in my county and usually end up with my limit with a little effort and take a couple other people to get birds also. About 6-7 years ago turkeys just started vanishing. I spoke to other hunters in the area as well as game wardens and most were seeing the same. I haven't killed a turkey in 5 years now and have pretty much given it up all together. Hunted 1 time last year and haven't even bothered this season. No clue what's behind it but as of today there have only been 103 turkeys checked in for Haywood county which includes the hatchie national wildlife refuge and thousands of acres of prime turkey habitat. There has been flooding in the river bottoms this spring but I only know of about 5 turkeys that have been killed by people I know.

 

[Bgoodman30]

My best farms have been under water 3 different times since our seasons opened. Nobody to blame for that.

Keep that head in the sand....

Well who would you like to blame the floods on?

Spring flooding is a normal occurrence. It happend when the population was good and growing and it happens now that the population is poor and declining. Simply blaming weather for everything and refusing to address the declining population is ignorant. I think that's Setterman's point.

Floods were earlier this year we used to get more flooding in May. I would think that would be worse?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Goodtimekiller]

My best farms have been under water 3 different times since our seasons opened. Nobody to blame for that.

Keep that head in the sand....

Well who would you like to blame the floods on?

Spring flooding is a normal occurrence. It happend when the population was good and growing and it happens now that the population is poor and declining. Simply blaming weather for everything and refusing to address the declining population is ignorant. I think that's Setterman's point.

I agree i was just making a funny, however, in some of the major turkey counties in tn 2009 and 2010 had record flooding in may. In the last 3-4 years i also think the rainfall has been much higher in the spring which has flooded much of the creek and river bottoms where turkeys usually nest. This is not info i have looked up but a great turkey hunter that owns 1000 acres on the Cumberland river pointed this out to me a week ago. That was his observation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[poorhunter]

Are you suggesting that if bottoms are under water that turkeys don't nest?

 

[Goodtimekiller]

Are you suggesting that if bottoms are under water that turkeys don't nest?

No, i'm suggesting if nests are in the bottoms and the bottoms flood the nests are destroyed. But, if bottoms are flooded and that does take up a good bit of nesting ground too. I think the point my friend was trying to make was that the rainfall, wheter it be flooding or damp ground leading to poor nests, or whatever, has had some negative effect on nests.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[woodsman04]

Setterman,

I see your point, and I am tracking the overall premise as well, but these are the latest numbers I get through yesterday (day 26 of statewide, but including all earlier hunts (Chuck Swan), statewide juvenile, and all WMAs):

2017- 29,162 to this point (84% of checked in turkeys last year during spring season)
2018- 21,852 to this point

That is a 28% difference from one year to the next, and not in the direction us hunters want to see it go.

If you take the 21,852 as of yesterday, and divide it by 84%, which is 0.84, you will see that we are tracking a final number of approximately 25,963 birds checked in. That number may increase somewhat, but I seriously doubt it will get anywhere near 30,000.

If we do not break the 30,000 mark for the spring season, it will be the first time since 2001 when we checked in 28,041. To put that in perspective, back then, statewide poults per hen ratios were consistently "4" from 1998-2002, and populations were exploding across much of the state. The 28,041 check in number for 2001 was a 6,000 bird increase from 2000 season when we checked in 22,145.

For A LOT of the state, especially middle Tennessee, those were the days turkey hunters dream of. You could literally mess up a turkey or two in the morning, and still have another option, or two, on a lot of farms, and on some public ground. That may not be realistic to expect, or sustain over time, but it is the days us turkey hunters dream of.

All good points here, but decoys and tss and turkey hunting fads were also not around then. Hell I bet back then If everybody woulda turkey hunted and used decoys harvest woulda been 50,000.

2000-2008 were my haydays in Tennessee. Since then has been bad.

Your correct, you could bump two or three birds everyday and still kill one later on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[woodsman04]

:roll: you know it really hurts, but a part of me wants to laugh, because alot of people whining in these threads posted, even up to last year, that "what's going on in southern middle tn shouldnt effect my turkey season" well you guys were warned, now it has an effect. I dont know what the answer is, but I do know I have had to drive an hour any direction for the last 12 years to find huntable populations of birds. I'll also add that changing the limit will not help.

Yep you were one of the originals, along with myself. The good old days of Wayne, Lawrence, and Giles turkey hunting is gone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Good time Charlie]

I can remember when I started seeing them,,I think we had turkeys before they stocked any.

I would flush a couple up and wonder what in the world that was..

They took off,, in 10 years we were hunting them....... can remember hunting chuck swan with a cassette player and no camo.It may have been the first hunt. there .It was so windy no one killed any birds...I was just wanting to hear one Gobble.

 

[TheLBLman]

I think too much focus on "harvest data" can actually contribute to our over-looking some significant changes regarding ongoing turkey populations, as well as changes in hunters' behaviors.

 

[TheLBLman]

That said, here's a few things I'd like to interject, mainly regarding our statewide "harvest data":

1) The majority of the annually "harvested" turkeys appear to be killed by the same sub-set of hunter groups each year.
This sub-set is a group of avid, accomplished turkey hunters, members of whom very rarely fail to kill a minimum of 1 turkey every spring, and most may kill 2 or 3, with many "holding out" ending their season, actually giving a pass to whatever bird "harvest" might do that.

Contrary to the belief of some, many of us do not have a goal of "limiting out" ASAP.
But most of us (within this subset, may kill multiple birds annually).
I suspect the majority of this group end up with 1 bird less than the limit, whether that limit be 2, 3, or 4.

2) The majority of TN's turkey hunters go years between their turkey kills,
so it's fair to say the "average" turkey hunter does not kill "a" bird annually, period.
However, the "newbie" learning is now a much quicker process, especially in terms of being able to "kill" turkeys.
Fact is, it is now easier than ever to kill a turkey, especially if one doesn't care exactly how he kills it.

3) So how does the early season "weekend weather" effect the harvest?
No doubt, bad weather reduces the harvest during early season.
But maybe not so much because the less avid hunters are not out hunting these weekends.
By contrast, those more avid, and accomplished turkey hunters are also the ones least effected by weather,
and more likely to be taking hunting vacation days during the week.

What I'm saying is, many of the birds not killed on those first couple weekends,
should have been killed during some nice weekdays we had between weekends.
Of course, that's assuming the birds were actually there to be killed.

4) But what about by "now"?

This current weekend, statewide, could the weather have been any better for turkey hunting?
This is the 5th weekend of the 2018 season, April 27 & 29.
By date, this should compare to the 5th weekend of the 2017 season, April 29 & 30, 2017.

Interestingly, as of the end of Sunday April 29, 2018
we will have completed 30 full days of spring turkey hunting.

As of the 2017 season's 5th Sunday, April 30
we had also completed 30 full days of spring turkey hunting.

To get a more valid "apples-to-apples" date comparison,
I believe we should be comparing the harvest by the end of Monday, May 1, 2017
vs. Monday, April 30, 2018.
In both years, we're talking having completed 31 full days of the turkey season,
and allowed a little extra time for the late weekend check-ins to get into the data.

 

[TheLBLman]

Just saying, IF our statewide turkey population were "stable" (relatively unchanged from 2017)
shouldn't we by now see year-to-date harvest numbers that are very close to last year?

I do think these numbers will end up closer than some earlier projected,
but also think they'll be so far below 2017's
it should be obvious to any numbers crunchers, there are fewer turkeys.

And, as stated previously, assuming turkeys are present, at no point in the past
has it been so easy to "kill" a turkey, considering all the modern advances in everything about it.
Even with an essentially unchanging (stable) turkey population,
shouldn't we expect to see progressively rising annual turkey harvests?
At least to the point of capitulation?
Did we just hit that with the 2018 season?

It's my belief a declining turkey population has been "camouflaged"
by steady increases in the ease of killing a turkey,
and the changes in how the average hunter "hunts" turkey.

My hope is the TWRA turkey biologists will recognize a true need to be more proactive with the regs,
which is about the only piece of a big puzzle they can effect much.
If they keep waiting, and waiting, until some study is completed, until more dire data demands immediate action, "reactive" reg changes (too little, too late) may be much harder for the average hunter to digest, and causing much more harm than more minor year-to-year carburetor adjustments to the regs.

 

[megalomaniac]

I agree Wes. But the most dire Stat with this years harvest numbers is the precipitous drop in jake harvest.

Hunters don't just change what they choose to kill for the past decades in a single year. 50% drop in statrwide jake kill means there are a LOT fewer jakes out there. Which means there are a LOT fewer jennies out there. Which means we have just fallen off the cliff for future populations. Too bad many don't even realize they are in in free fall and about to go splat.

Sent from my SCH-R970X using Tapatalk

 

[Goodtimekiller]

I agree Wes. But the most dire Stat with this years harvest numbers is the precipitous drop in jake harvest.

Hunters don't just change what they choose to kill for the past decades in a single year. 50% drop in statrwide jake kill means there are a LOT fewer jakes out there. Which means there are a LOT fewer jennies out there. Which means we have just fallen off the cliff for future populations. Too bad many don't even realize they are in in free fall and about to go splat.

Sent from my SCH-R970X using Tapatalk

I'm not saying you're wrong, but could it be because of the hard hunting and weather this year the die hard hunters are the majority of hunters killing turkeys, and the ones that do not shoot jakes? I only say this because I have seen more jakes this year than longbeards. Of the 3 main farms I've hunted I've seen 6, 9, and 8 jakes. These farms average 200 acres a piece. I went to a friend's farm to film yesterday and we called in 7 jakes, my friend grew up on this farm and he said those were the first jakes he can really remember seeing on the farm in a long time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TheLBLman]

I think the turkey population dynamics are a huge puzzle, statewide.

Muddying the waters has been an increase in ease of killing turkeys, and a decrease in hunter ethics, such as a growing number of hunters seeming to have no problem with their taking lots of low-probability shots (which result in more wounded birds that die un-recovered, often presumed "missed").

Nesting success, the number of jakes (and jennies) varies greatly statewide, very different year-to-year.
I do think there is a voluntary effort among many hunters to let jakes have a pass.
But this is off-set, by more of those survivors getting killed as 2-yr-olds.

Statewide, I believe we're progressively harvesting a higher percentage annually of what we have.
Along with this, nesting success has been progressively getting lower.
This is a double-whammy
which will lead to the sudden realization that we HAD a problem years before we realized its extent.
I think we may come to this realization this year, possibly next.

It has simply happened and is happening in some counties (and parts of counties) sooner than others.

Much of this "puzzle" is outside TWRA's control.
TWRA cannot control the weather, nor can they control hunter ethics.
For the most part, TWRA only controls the regs, a small piece of a big puzzle.
But regs do make a difference, especially over time.

If you think they don't, imagine if we had no limit on turkeys,
and hens were legal. We'd go right back to where we killed off most the turkeys statewide, and basically again had none to hunt. That is exactly where we were before massive restoration took place, and back then, the value of more limited turkey hunting allowed for population increases and expansion.

We did similarly with deer & waterfowl, before highly regulated seasons.
The regs do matter.
Conservationists who hunt will not do this, regardless the regs, but not all hunters are conservationists.

 

[AT Hiker]

Conservationists who hunt will not do this, regardless the regs, but not all hunters are conservationists.

Sadly, I have concluded this as well. My ignorance has over shadowed this fact for a long while, I chalked it up mainly as me "maturing" as a hunter and others still a stage or two behind me. But no, turkey hunting has become a numbers game. In general, we have disrespected the bird so much that now it's "cool" to hold the dead birds head up and take a selfie with your stupid mouth call hanging out. Hunters are not Viking savages, we are conservationists. Plain and simple.

Until we stop worshiping the self proclaimed turkey all stars because of how many kills they get, it will not stop. Until we start holding more people accountable for the hunt and NOT the kill, conservation will continue to die.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Boll Weevil]

I think you're right AT. Sad really...but true.

 

[2in1shot]

Conservationists who hunt will not do this, regardless the regs, but not all hunters are conservationists.

In general, we have disrespected the bird so much that now it's "cool" to hold the dead birds head up and take a selfie with your stupid mouth call hanging out. Hunters are not Viking savages, we are conservationists.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What the HECK???!!!??!!! Who would put their diaphragm in a dead turkeys mouth!?

I would rather lick a dead armadillos butt hole!! ......Turkeys pick through crow crap!