Numbers droping ?

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If weather had everything to do with like some of yall say, then the turkey breeding would be kinda year-round. Think about it. Everyday that the temperature resembled the month of April temps, turkeys would be breeding. I don't know how I can dumb it down more than that. That would cause the whole dynamics of the flock to mess up.
If it was about the weather, poults could perhaps be born in March. Then as there growing, we get an April snowstorm or somthing(has happened before.) That would kill all of them. God created these turkeys to breed and have their clutch hatch during the optimal time of year for poult survival. Late spring and summer. Bugs and seeds are plentiful, grass is high enough to hide them from predators, and no chance of a big snow or weather even of the like to kill them off. The mroe than usual rains we have been recieving this time of year the past several years minus last year is just plain ole dumb luck.
 
I do agree and know for fact that turkeys do gobble better in more pretty weather, or cooler mornings rather than sloppy weather. I do know, and know for fact, that they breed soley on the increasing lenght of day coming into the spring equinox. Whitetail deer are same way. They rut because of lenght of day. The reason why people do not see them during the rut is because they simply didn't get any daylight activity because of hot weather or something.
 
People say the last two years should prove that. I aint going off the last two years. I am talking every spring for eternity. I don't care how hot it was last spring, nor how cold it was this spring, now how average the year before was or whatever. It will always be the same, barring the world ending.

If you experienced low gobbling last year, perhaps your place wasn't good, you went on days that it simply wasn't much gobbling, or you are a poor hunter. If you experienced bad gobbling days this year, your place is either down, you went on a day that weather was not conducive to gobbling, or your a poor hunter. They always mate during the spring of the year, every year.

Doesn't matter if they gobbler or not, they still will mate. I would (say in my area) nearly every hen is bred by the end of the first week of the season, and many more are probably bred before that. Hens can hold sperm for nearly 3 weeks. They fertilize each egg individually and then lay them when ready. Once their clutch is complete, they normally start setting. It is last week of April and first week of May every year (at my areas). Just because you are hunting and its April 20th and a longbeard has three or four hens with them does not mean at all they have not been bred. I am 95% sure those hens have already been bred, but they continue to breed. I don't know why, it only takes once, but I guess turkeys like breeding as much as I do.
 
The increasing lengh of day causes the hens egg polyps to start "dropping" down, where they are then fertilized by sperm.

Yall can't argue with proven science and facts, that an abnormal temperatures spring or any season for that matter controls the way they breed.
 
There is NO proactive quick fix to significantly increasing the turkey population. Much of the outcome is beyond our control, such as flooding, poor nesting conditions, poor survival of poults, which even under the best of times, I'd still call it "poor".

But that said, there are adjustments which could be made that improve the outcome, especially over a 3-yr-plus period. Likewise, doing the opposite of these reduces the turkey population.

Again, factors beyond our control may have more impact, but here's a few things we could do to increase the turkey population:

1) Eliminate the fall turkey hunting.
It makes about as much sense as having a spring deer season.

2) If the fall turkey season is not eliminated, then let those birds count against the following spring's annual limit. If you kill several in the fall, you could become "limited out" before the spring season even opens.

3) Reduce the annual limit to 3 turkeys (bearded birds only in the spring). (And if you kill a turkey during the fall, your spring limit becomes 2 bearded birds the following spring.)

4) Lastly, instead of making the regs more complicated, we could just simplify the regs by eliminating the fall turkey season.
 
I can't understand why You keep asking questions... You make it apparent you know all the answers. I am not a biologist by no means and I am sure length of day does trigger breeding but my real world experiences from hunting turkeys going on 25 yrs 30+ days/yr in several different states, successfully I might add, has proven to me what makes for better hunting. I will take an early spring such as last, over a late spring such as this year every time.
There are many many factors that play into why you aren't seeing the numbers of birds you used too. Poor hatches and hunter pressure are at the top whether you choose to believe it or not.... I am sure bush-hogs are not NEW to your area I would imagine they were around before the turkeys showed up.
I think this whole thread is getting twisted. Gobbling and mating are two different things..... Birds gobble yr around but, like you said, they don't mate year around...
 
Wes Parrish said:
There is NO proactive quick fix to significantly increasing the turkey population. Much of the outcome is beyond our control, such as flooding, poor nesting conditions, poor survival of poults, which even under the best of times, I'd still call it "poor".

But that said, there are adjustments which could be made that improve the outcome, especially over a 3-yr-plus period. Likewise, doing the opposite of these reduces the turkey population.

Again, factors beyond our control may have more impact, but here's a few things we could do to increase the turkey population:

1) Eliminate the fall turkey hunting.
It makes about as much sense as having a spring deer season.

2) If the fall turkey season is not eliminated, then let those birds count against the following spring's annual limit. If you kill several in the fall, you could become "limited out" before the spring season even opens.

3) Reduce the annual limit to 3 turkeys (bearded birds only in the spring). (And if you kill a turkey during the fall, your spring limit becomes 2 bearded birds the following spring.)

4) Lastly, instead of making the regs more complicated, we could just simplify the regs by eliminating the fall turkey season.
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I like all of your points and agree with them. No quick fix. I don't think they should nesecarily end fall turkey hunting, but definately eliminate hen murdering and also count all gobblers towards a statewide, year-round, baglimit. I would aslo like to get rid of the "bearded birds" and make it "gobblers only" that way hens aren't killed just for the sake of having a scraggly skinny, 7 inch beard, and bird that only weighs 12 pounds, and has little meat.

Like you say most of it is out of our control with the weather, the influx of hogs and armidillos, but we need to control the things we can control like not shooting hens and babies and creating better nesting habitat.
 
Roost 1 said:
I can't understand why You keep asking questions... You make it apparent you know all the answers. I am not a biologist by no means and I am sure length of day does trigger breeding but my real world experiences from hunting turkeys going on 25 yrs 30+ days/yr in several different states, successfully I might add, has proven to me what makes for better hunting. I will take an early spring such as last, over a late spring such as this year every time.
There are many many factors that play into why you aren't seeing the numbers of birds you used too. Poor hatches and hunter pressure are at the top whether you choose to believe it or not.... I am sure bush-hogs are not NEW to your area I would imagine they were around before the turkeys showed up.
I think this whole thread is getting twisted. Gobbling and mating are two different things..... Birds gobble yr around but, like you said, they don't mate year around...
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I am not asking questions, I am giving answers and making suggestions. Perhaps if we all got to hunt everyday of the year in every state and were "successful" as you added, we wouldn't be saying why the few spots we do have to hunt on are not as good as they once were. I like to make the best of my hunting time, and If I had the time to go and the money to go I would be out there more than you and more places than you.
 
I have read your posts, and you come in acting high and mighty because you kill your turkeys the first week of the season, acting like you know everything about it, and think your cool because your in a contest every year. You are just someone who gets to hunt everyday and has the best spots in the country to hunt. Don't come bragging to me and everyone else on how good you are and how much you get to hunt.
Be thankful that you have good places and get to go alot, one day you might not have any turkeys left.
 
ImThere said:
Woodsman87 = Setterman? Lol
Gotta give it to you know it all!
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:D

Why don't y'all shut up and go coyote hunting. Save a few poults....

Oh and I saw spring deer season mentioned. If there were a spring deer season, I would hunt it. But I thought we weren't supposed to be comparing deer to turkeys here......
 
102 said:
I thought records were being set every year with the turkey bag limit?

Now, one bad season and we need to change limits?

Are you kidding me?

This was the worst season ever for me and every one I have talked to. But it is also the 5th coldest Spring on record.
Last year was the warmest EVER on record. It was also my best season ever.

I am SURE there are PLENTY of turkeys in all the areas I hunted this Spring.
THE BIRDS JUST PLAIN DID NOT GOBBLE!!!

I feel certain the weather screwed them up.

Now if I could just get a couple weeks extension on my season I would be set as I feel certain this Spring squirrel season will be GREAT for GOBBLING turkeys!!!
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102, its not that the birds didn't gobble, they are gone. A wintering group of over 300 birds every fall, on two different dairy farms, app. 6=700 birds, vanished. The locals who live in the area haven't seen them. My brother manages a local propane company in this county, as well as others in the area. He sees tons normally, but they have vanished. He lives three miles from one spot, normally has em in his yard ,hears em every spring. Nothing. To our knowledge, no trapping has been done. I don't know whats up, but to lose this many this quick is puzzling. Ive watched the flock grow since the early seventys, seen several, several yrs of bad hatchs, and have been a member of the NWTF for 30 yrs, working on lots of projects all over west Tn. for the turkeys, but I am telling you, something seems to really have changed, and its happened fast.
 
Not trying to be like setterman, just got worked over. Didn't realize I sounded like him till it was brought up.
 
Its all good Woodsman87 you have more than me on the subject for sure but i think what got we was the " i cant dumb it down more than that " statement
 
Once again, it's usually the "There done" crowd that believe weather(early or late spring) affects the breeding cycle of the wild turkey. Their ignorance of facts or just plain lack of knowledge never ceases to amaze me, no matter how many turkeys they may have killed the first and second week of the spring season. For someone to say that "all" hens or even "all" does are bred by a specific date or week is comical at best. As long as there is at least one hen that is willing to breed(young jennies, those that have lost nests and are "dry"), there will be a gobbler willing to breed her on into June. He will gobble, strut, spit and drum throughout this time to attract those willing hens. I could locate, call to the gun, and kill receptive, gobbling turkeys on into June, both here in the East Tennessee mountains, as well as in the everglades of South Florida if the season allowed it. As for numbers dropping, I choose strictly to hunt turkeys on public land. The intense pressure the turkeys I hunt receive garantees there will always be at least a few 3 yr old gobblers or better, for me to hunt. That is all I care about. As for this new breed of game keepers and "land managers" that are concerned with "their" turkey numbers, it's simple, if you don't have them, don't shoot them. But to tell me or anyone else that we can not kill the legal limit of four, because you can't go out and hear 20 different turkeys gobble as you might have done in years past, is insulting. As for fall turkey hunting, I will continue to yelp to the gun and kill at least one turkey, gobbler or hen, in November, whether there is a season or not ;)
 
tickweed said:
. . . . . they are gone. A wintering group of over 300 birds every fall, on two different dairy farms, app. 6=700 birds, vanished. . . . . . . something seems to really have changed, and its happened fast.
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Very strange.
Topping my list of possibilities would be aflatoxin poisoning from feeding corn, although aflatoxin may have had nothing to do with what happened. Just my best bet.
 
woodsman87 said:
Roost 1 said:
Roost 1 said:
AT Hiker said:
Does anyone know how Ft Campbell did this year? They used to be covered in birds a few years back when I hunted it. They were bonus birds for spring and fall I believe. It used to be a great hunt, but it got more difficult to get an area so I gave up hunting their.

Reason I ask is because it seemed they wanted to get rid of all the birds with the liberal limits, of course if they dont open up many areas then reaching that quota is difficult.
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Prolly one of the worst harvest on record. 192 total and lots of areas open each weekend. Like everywhere else there wasnt a bunch of 2yr olds which makes for less gobbling and harder hunting. The last weekend had the highest harvest of the whole season. Many reasons for this such as it was beautiful weather instead of raining and lots of the gobblers had lost their hens. But overall if was a very tough year at the fort.
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Let me add....the harvest has went down each year since the limit was raised to 4...All areas there cant handle a 4 bird limit. Harvest totals were higher when the limit was 2 and/or 3.
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Harvest limits effect on the population have minimal effect on the actual population. Science also proves that.
Saving gobblers obviously helps some because you still have 3 or 4 year old left over. I agree that maybe we should bring the limit down, but it will not be a quick fix like we all think.
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Science proves it has minimal effect? I wouldn't go that far, pretty sure harvest limits are really important. I think I understand what you meant, but to say limits have no effect as a blanket statement might be a little confusing. Harvest limits are really important, but there is more to the equation than just limits.

None the less...Ft Campbell, imo, is a prime example of what extreme hunter pressure and harvest can do to a population of turkeys. Not sure why FC was so extreme on their turkey "eradication" but that appears what it was...an eradication.

I just got back from the Black Hills of SD and the hunting has suffered dramatically. It used to be considered a turkey hunters dream land, but years of bad hatches, fires, timber harvest, etc and no change in regulations has caused some major decline in populations. Top that with fires and declines in surrounding states, which has caused an influx in out of state hunters, and the hunting is pretty tough in most areas. This is going off experience I might add, but if you ask one biologist they might tell you the population is great while another might say it is in horrible shape. When you have these two conflicting statements from biologist in the same agency you will likely never fix the problem. I assume this is happening in TN as well.
 
woodsman87 said:
I have read your posts, and you come in acting high and mighty because you kill your turkeys the first week of the season, acting like you know everything about it, and think your cool because your in a contest every year. You are just someone who gets to hunt everyday and has the best spots in the country to hunt. Don't come bragging to me and everyone else on how good you are and how much you get to hunt.
Be thankful that you have good places and get to go alot, one day you might not have any turkeys left.
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Acting high and mighty is not my intentions and if you perceive it that way I apologize. I am just sharing information as I perceive it from my personal experiences. Not trying to brag or be cool either. Just offering my opinions if you don't like that then I can agree to disagree.
Btw some of best spots are public......
 
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