Missouri reports

[Goodtimekiller]

GTK, I don't have the time, nor inclination to post supportive studies for the truths I speak. God blessed me with a near photographic memory, so it's very easy for me to spew esoteric data from papers I've read over a decade ago. I don't need to prove myself, and besides, there will always be lost causes who won't listen. I'm not speaking to the lost causes, I'm speaking to those who want to understand population dynamics of turkeys, and how to potentially reverse negative trends.

I was just like you once upon a time, with so many turkeys that I thought there would be no way possible they could go the way of the Dodo. But they can, and they did on my largest farm. I watched it happen over the course of a decade, and tried my best to stop it, but ultimately, one of the largest flocks of birds east of the MS died out.

I'm just grateful so many people are now recognizing and admitting something is wrong. Next step is to have TWRA act. Doing nothing or sticking heads in sand is not a viable option any longer. I hope you never experience a decline in your local flock, but realize it CAN happen.

As i have stated i agree with most of what has been said here. And i have said more than once the reason i am on here is to try and do the best i can to prevent declines where i hunt, so i am trying to be proactive, and your comment that i think i have to many birds to go into a decline does not accurately describe me. I made my post for 2 reasons 1) to point out how others take info from some but not others 2) because i actually would like to read some of these studies for myself to learn a little more versus blindly taking info from an unknown source.

Furthermore, i can promise i listen to your comments and those of many others on here more than anyone listens to mine, even when i provide proof. So, just because i say something that does not agree with your thoughts, it isnt really to argue, but to discuss, there is a huge difference. Now i will say when i have been called a liar and other things i have probably added a little sarcasm to the thread just to tickle some nerves because it really irritates me to me be called a liar and say im full of bull, i would not waste my time writing lies here.

Many of the thong we say are the same just put differently. For example, you say stressed turkeys and talk about hunters chasing turkeys as a stressor. I talk about over hunting turkeys. That doesnt necessarily mean killing too many but even being on one farm too much pressuring the turkeys.


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[TheLBLman]

. . . . have said more than once the reason i am on here is
to try and do the best i can to prevent declines where i hunt,
so i am trying to be proactive . . . . .

That's much of the reason many are on here.

Serious question:

What are your thoughts on our going to a statewide 2-bird limit?

Also, did you know some turkey hunting clubs "count" any bird you shoot at as one that counts toward your club limit,
whether you come home with it or not?
(The thinking is so many of these die a few days later from a single pellet in the gut,
and many hunters stop taking low-probability shots if birds (or deer) are counted via what is shot at rather than what is recovered.)
Not that this could be implemented statewide (like it can on some private areas and some WMA's)
but what are your thoughts on this?

 

[Goodtimekiller]

. . . . have said more than once the reason i am on here is
to try and do the best i can to prevent declines where i hunt,
so i am trying to be proactive . . . . .

That's much of there reason many are on here.

Serious question:

What are your thoughts on our going to a statewide 2-bird limit?

Also, did you know some turkey hunting clubs "count" any bird you shoot at as one that counts toward your club limit,
where you come home with it or not?
Not that this could be implemented statewide (like it can on some private areas and some WMA's)
but what are your thoughts on this?

I have varying thoughts on the 2 bird limit, but ultimately think it is probably what should be done, even though frw hunters shoot more than 2. My one thought against it is selfish, i love to hunt turkeys. My other thoughts for it are not as selfish but could be considered so. 1) if i limited out early i could have more time to travel and hunt 2) i could go with and take more people 3) maybe my wife would be happier because i wouldn't get to hunt quite as much 4) most importantly, i think it would really increase the population so there would be turkeys absolutely everywhere, i would love that 5) with so many turkeys the hunting may be easier, i would think there would be a turkey around every corner. The one thing i would say and i hadn't thought about it until the last day or two, but on what was my historically best and longest hunted farm, about 10 years ago we had a hard time finding turkeys, this also coincided with other major changes on the farm and we used that as an excuse, but since that time the birds have been there just like they were before, but this is the farm i hunt the least now because i moved 50 minutes away and i can't take anyone else. So maybe that has something to do with the good population but they came back as i was hunting it about 50% of the time at one point.

As far as your other question, i really see nothing wrong with it but i doubt many people would follow it. It would definitely make responsible hunters take more responsibility and if it could be enforced you would have fewer people taking shots at 50 yards or greater. I cant remember the last bird i shot at over 45 yards and i shoot with a scope and pattern religiously. My goal is to kill them at 5 if i can. Also, i bowhunt elk every year. This follows what most people out west believe if you shoot an elk. I think it would also make people look for and find more turkeys that they thought were complete misses. My uncle shot his first 2 years ago and i was 100 yds behind him watching the whole thing. He walked over to me and said he missed, i told him we better go look for the bird, we found it at the bottom of the hollow being mounted by another.

I was just reading over the plan that is linked on this thread, it states that 18% of male (i think just male) turkey deaths were due to poaching and 12% were due to legal harvests. So, knowing that, makes me think the "shot is a tag filled" idea would be less likely to work. I also think that shot shell sales would go out the roof because i think every turkey would get 3 shots fired no matter what (that's partly a joke).


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[Goodtimekiller]

I also dont care if they push the season opener back 2 weeks, however i wish they would at least push the close back a week, i can't stand that it's on mothers day and i never get to hunt the last day, maybe an hour or two if i want to push it with the wife.


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[Setterman]

I also dont care if they push the season opener back 2 weeks, however i wish they would at least push the close back a week, i can't stand that it's on mothers day and i never get to hunt the last day, maybe an hour or two if i want to push it with the wife.


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I could get on board with this. For us in the mountains we don't get the fun times of birds without hens. We hunt henned up birds all season. Only once in my life have we been able to find lone birds late season. If anything it gets tougher towards the end because we are so far behind,

Our season structure is dumb honestly.

One thing that could go is the youth hunts. I know that's controversial but if people are focused on their kids you can take them anytime and not hit the birds when they're so vulnerable

 

[Goodtimekiller]

I also dont care if they push the season opener back 2 weeks, however i wish they would at least push the close back a week, i can't stand that it's on mothers day and i never get to hunt the last day, maybe an hour or two if i want to push it with the wife.


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I could get on board with this. For us in the mountains we don't get the fun times of birds without hens. We hunt henned up birds all season. Only once in my life have we been able to find lone birds late season. If anything it gets tougher towards the end because we are so far behind,

Our season structure is dumb honestly.

One thing that could go is the youth hunts. I know that's controversial but if people are focused on their kids you can take them anytime and not hit the birds when they're so vulnerable

I agree on the youth hunt but i think some kids would get left out unless there was a day that only kids could hunt. It would be hard to regulate but it would be good i think if there was a weekend during the middle of the season that adults could only hunt if they were with a kid. The other thought i had was maybe just have the youth hunt in the middle of the season, one weekend no adult hunting. If you pushed the season back 2 weeks and then had the youth hunt in the middle that would save some mature birds from being killed too early and keep the youth hunt from being at then end of the season when i feel most people are over it and fishing.
But i do agree, the kids could/should be taken every time anyway.

I also think reducing the limit to 2 will get more kids out there because if the adult limits out and wants to go any more theyll have to take the kid, maybe a sad way to look at it but i think thats the way it happens a lot.


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[Roost 1]

I totally agree about the end date. I don't like hunting in May past the first weekend. I am usually tired from chasing them
since mid March and also because I don't like hunting in 85 degree weather.

 

[megalomaniac]

GTK, I can tell you're a great guy at heart. I know your invitations for others to hunt with you are sincere, as are your passions for turkeys. I seem like a know it all, but I love to acquire knowledge from anyone anywhere and i still have a lot to learn. I LOVE to learn, and I know that I'll never be able to learn everything.

That being said, I love turkey biology and want to learn everything I can about it... so much that I have my own small captive flock of Eastern Wilds at my house. I literally get to interact with turkeys everyday of the year (ofc, I know wild turkeys kept in a pen under aviary netting aren't the same as true wild birds).

That being said, I've really been impressed with the relative lack of fertility hens can have, even when a tom is housed with them. I noticed occasional infertile eggs in past years, especially with one hen who wouldn't let the tom top her often, but my 4 yo birds are only giving me about 75% fertile eggs this year, and it isn't consistent with a certain hen now that I'm actually tracking it.

I'm convinced (but willing to admit I may be wrong), that one of our problems in TN is that we open the season too early (before all hens have been successfully bred and rebred prior to setting). That probably isn't a problem in areas with multiple gobblers, but in areas with marginal populations, gobblers are definetly being killed before maximum fertility of eggs has been achieved.

And what is the harm in opening the season 2 weeks later? Sure, TWRA will lose a bit of revenue from out of staters whose season isn't open yet, but it won't be worth sacrificing our birds for. For everyone else, there will be the same number of birds available to kill in the spring whether the season opens end of March or mid April.

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[SKFOOTER]

And what are your thoughts on making jakes legal for youth hunters only?

 

[woodsman04]

I also dont care if they push the season opener back 2 weeks, however i wish they would at least push the close back a week, i can't stand that it's on mothers day and i never get to hunt the last day, maybe an hour or two if i want to push it with the wife.


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I could get on board with this. For us in the mountains we don't get the fun times of birds without hens. We hunt henned up birds all season. Only once in my life have we been able to find lone birds late season. If anything it gets tougher towards the end because we are so far behind,

Our season structure is dumb honestly.

One thing that could go is the youth hunts. I know that's controversial but if people are focused on their kids you can take them anytime and not hit the birds when they're so vulnerable

I agree with this as usual setterman, and I agree with the kid thing except that the fact the kids get the first crack at unpressured birds. But if it's hurting our resource something needs to be done and that is an option.

I also agree with you in the mountain areas. The best Time to call up willing gobbling birds in my experience is when the hens start sitting on nest.

Never understood how one state with as many different habitats and weather variations has an entire blanket season.

Dumb structure.


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[Goodtimekiller]

I guess i have no big deal with the jakes. From what i have heard biologists say and read it makes little difference. My first 2 impressions on this are what is considered a jake? I called 7 in 2 weeks ago and one had a full gobble, full fan but about a 5-6" beard. It's not as easy as saying a 10 pointer or something like that. I would foresee a lot of ground checking and not tagging in when it was not a legal bird. My other thought brings a friend to mind. He's from ky and would shoot a jake in a heartbeat. The first few times he cane to hunt with me i would not let him shoot a jake, and we saw tons. Then, my uncle made the point that he has paid a small fortune to hunt out of state and if i didn't let him shoot a jake he may never come back to hunt and he's out all that money and no bird to show for it. Because everyone said it didnt really make a difference in the population i let him shoot a jake the next year, after we had 9 longbeards within range (3 different groups over several hours) and he couldn't get a shot. I still think adults probably shouldn't shoot them but i dont feel as strongly about it. And as bad as i hate to admit it, tn does depend on money from out of staters to fund things we are discussing. But on the flip side, if our population comes back strong the out of staters would have enough adult birds to shoot to want to pass on jakes. A man from ky that i hunted with this past weekend told me he paid $300 for an out of state license. I have no idea what that included but pretty steep to me. If i paid that i would definitely want to shoot something but i would hate to have to tell my friends i paid that to shoot a jake.


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[Goodtimekiller]

I also dont care if they push the season opener back 2 weeks, however i wish they would at least push the close back a week, i can't stand that it's on mothers day and i never get to hunt the last day, maybe an hour or two if i want to push it with the wife.


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I could get on board with this. For us in the mountains we don't get the fun times of birds without hens. We hunt henned up birds all season. Only once in my life have we been able to find lone birds late season. If anything it gets tougher towards the end because we are so far behind,

Our season structure is dumb honestly.

One thing that could go is the youth hunts. I know that's controversial but if people are focused on their kids you can take them anytime and not hit the birds when they're so vulnerable

I agree with this as usual setterman, and I agree with the kid thing except that the fact the kids get the first crack at unpressured birds. But if it's hurting our resource something needs to be done and that is an option.

I also agree with you in the mountain areas. The best Time to call up willing gobbling birds in my experience is when the hens start sitting on nest.

Never understood how one state with as many different habitats and weather variations has an entire blanket season.

Dumb structure.


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agreed


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[Goodtimekiller]

GTK, I can tell you're a great guy at heart. I know your invitations for others to hunt with you are sincere, as are your passions for turkeys. I seem like a know it all, but I love to acquire knowledge from anyone anywhere and i still have a lot to learn. I LOVE to learn, and I know that I'll never be able to learn everything.

That being said, I love turkey biology and want to learn everything I can about it... so much that I have my own small captive flock of Eastern Wilds at my house. I literally get to interact with turkeys everyday of the year (ofc, I know wild turkeys kept in a pen under aviary netting aren't the same as true wild birds).

That being said, I've really been impressed with the relative lack of fertility hens can have, even when a tom is housed with them. I noticed occasional infertile eggs in past years, especially with one hen who wouldn't let the tom top her often, but my 4 yo birds are only giving me about 75% fertile eggs this year, and it isn't consistent with a certain hen now that I'm actually tracking it.

I'm convinced (but willing to admit I may be wrong), that one of our problems in TN is that we open the season too early (before all hens have been successfully bred and rebred prior to setting). That probably isn't a problem in areas with multiple gobblers, but in areas with marginal populations, gobblers are definetly being killed before maximum fertility of eggs has been achieved.

And what is the harm in opening the season 2 weeks later? Sure, TWRA will lose a bit of revenue from out of staters whose season isn't open yet, but it won't be worth sacrificing our birds for. For everyone else, there will be the same number of birds available to kill in the spring whether the season opens end of March or mid April.

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Do you know if turkeys are similar to chickens? When i had chickens i read that their production greatly dropped off between 4 and 5 years old.

I would say if we had a very strong population, those hunters in states around us with lower limits would still come to shoot birds if/when they limited out in their state. And i would think most of them already have farms to hunt in tn so even if we opened the season later they would still come. If not then maybe tennesseans could get more places to hunt and i wouldnt have hunters riding down the road yelling at birds where i hunt, which is right beside the farm they hunt and they may feel less of a need to shoot from the road if theres more available land to hunt. I know thats pretty optimistic and most poachers are gonna poach even if they dont have to, but one can dream. And by the way, those hunters were caught on video yelling at birds on the farm i hunt the day before the season opened.


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[recurve60#]

Guys I've been following the decline in Turkey's thread. I've not seen a decline where I hunt, but i hear my farm this my farm that when it comes to decline. I also read bad hatches, weather, bag limits to high. What I have not heard is herbicides effecting hatches. I may be going out on a limb here, no pun intended, but Grazon is very potent. If I put dried cow piles in my garden from a pasture sprayed with Grazon it will kill my garden. What could be the effects of that spray in fence rows and over spray into thickets hitting nests? I truly think its worth a study if the "farms" don't have Turkey's anymore. I hunt mountains btw. I've not seen the decrease I'm reading about here.

 

[TheLBLman]

What I have not heard is herbicides effecting hatches. I may be going out on a limb here, no pun intended, but Grazon is very potent.

I think this is another "piece" of the big puzzle.
For many the same reasons bobwhite quail populations have been devastated (younger folks cannot even relate to that statement)
turkey populations are declining.

For some of you younger guys,
can you imagine that quail hunting in Tennessee was once much more popular,
with many more quail hunters then,
than we have turkey hunters today?

This was the case until probably sometime in the late 1970's to early 1980's,
after which quail have been in a steady decline in most areas, perhaps near extinct in most these areas where less than 40 years ago they were thriving.

I'm bringing up quail because they are a remarkably similar small-scale version of a turkey.
About the only places I'm seeing much in terms of stable quail populations today (in TN) are
those places that are non-agricultural.

 

[woodsman04]

What I have not heard is herbicides effecting hatches. I may be going out on a limb here, no pun intended, but Grazon is very potent.

I think this is another "piece" of the big puzzle.
For many the same reasons bobwhite quail populations have been devastated (younger folks cannot even relate to that statement)
turkey populations are declining.

For some of you younger guys,
can you imagine that quail hunting in Tennessee was once much more popular,
with many more quail hunters then,
than we have turkey hunters today?

This was the case until probably sometime in the late 1970's to early 1980's,
after which quail have been in a steady decline in most areas, perhaps near extinct in most these areas where less than 40 years ago they were thriving.

I'm bringing up quail because they are a remarkably similar small-scale version of a turkey.
About the only places I'm seeing much in terms of stable quail populations today (in TN) are
those places that are non-agricultural.

Quail pretty much gone, and why they still even have an open season is crazy, but it doesn't matter because all quail hunting is around here is walking in the weeds with dogs toting a gun.

Quail and turkeys are very similar, but the big advantage that a turkey has over quail is that once it gets through its first summer and into fall, it's big enough, fast enough, and strong enough to evade many predators. Quail are perfect eating size for all predators their entire life.


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[Stlbaseball1]

I too have often wondered about whether or not chemical applications harm turkeys...

 

[TheLBLman]

Quail and turkeys are very similar, but the big advantage that a turkey has over quail is that once it gets through its first summer and into fall, it's big enough, fast enough, and strong enough to evade many predators.
Quail are perfect eating size for all predators their entire life.

I USED to think that myself, but have recently changed my mind a bit.

More recently (past few years) have witnessed an "evolution" of some of the more apex predators specifically targeting turkeys, yet these particular predators would appear to have less, little or no interest in something as small as a bobwhite quail.

This is in part due to quail populations being so sparse that maybe certain predators like coyotes and bobcats now have little opportunity to specifically focus their hunting on adult quail (as they once did).

But adult turkeys have some new predatory problems:
Both increases in predators that hunt turkeys,
and evolutionary changes in both how and what these predators focus their hunting.

More and more, I see coyotes and bobcats out "hunting" during mid-day,
and this seems always focused on places they would expect to ambush a turkey.
Most other prey they hunt are more easily hunted nocturnally.

Then, there is the increase and evolution of bald eagles.
They have been learning to target and hunt turkeys,
while they'll likely never have interest in smaller birds such as quail.

Duck hunters were the first to witness part of this eagle revolution.
I'm just telling you it also involves turkeys.

 

[TheLBLman]

I too have often wondered about whether or not chemical applications harm turkeys...

Think about the prime food items of both young turkeys and young quail:
Insects.

When there are a lot less insects, and a lot less cover to protect foraging young birds from predators,
as they search for insects, more young birds get killed by various predators.

I've heard that quail often nest successfully,
but then the baby quail die of starvation due to a lack of insects.
Never heard of this happening in non-agricultural areas.

 

[SKFOOTER]

I've been waiting for someone to mention bald eagles. They are becoming more plentiful and can definitely take down a full grown turkey.