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Prospects for 2021

How many Toms do you have to hunt?

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Bgoodman30

Bgoodman30

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Just for discussion if you have scouted or spent some time in your hunting area. How do you think your woods look after last years slaughter?
 
Bgoodman30 said:
South?
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Southern Hickman. The last two years I have heard, if memory serves me correctly, 4 different birds total on 622 acres and however far I can hear on neighboring properties. Last year, I called one of them within 20 yards, but I completely botched my setup and couldn't pull off the shot. Kind of glad I didn't kill him now. That was opening morning. Didn't see OR hear another gobble the rest of the season and I was the only one hunting the place.
 
no idea to be honest. I have not had a chance to get it to my spots yet this year. From the looks in deer season it will be about the same as usually on my main spot. Just depends how many fly across the river when they split up. Other 2 spots a lot depends on an early spring or not for the grass to get to tall to hunt it.
 
I have only been out scouting twice. Haven't seen a turkey within a mile of my house this spring. Had a nice flock of 20 around most of last spring.
 
I've scouted hardwoods and listened at a few places over the last 10 days. I have not heard a single gobble at daylight, but I have seen signs of turkeys in the areas with tracks, droppings, feathers and scratching. I suspect I will have a few LBs to hunt locally, but not an abundance. There will be hunting pressure on all sides of the areas I hunt as well. As always, I will travel in state and out of state to see more habitat and spread my kills out.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
Southern Hickman. The last two years I have heard, if memory serves me correctly, 4 different birds total on 622 acres and however far I can hear on neighboring properties. Last year, I called one of them within 20 yards, but I completely botched my setup and couldn't pull off the shot. Kind of glad I didn't kill him now. That was opening morning. Didn't see OR hear another gobble the rest of the season and I was the only one hunting the place.
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I hunted a property in southern Hickman on the last day of season and heard more birds than I have there in 3-4 years.. Granted it definitely doesn't have the birds it did 8-10 years ago.
 
Andy S. said:
I've scouted hardwoods and listened at a few places over the last 10 days. I have not heard a single gobble at daylight, but I have seen signs of turkeys in the areas with tracks, droppings, feathers and scratching. I suspect I will have a few LBs to hunt locally, but not an abundance. There will be hunting pressure on all sides of the areas I hunt as well. As always, I will travel in state and out of state to see more habitat and spread my kills out.
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I have heard very little gobbling around the house in the mornings. I haven't listed yet most my scouting has been off cameras. They were strutting and gobbling good at a buddies in Nashville this morning. The birds I saw yesterday in Hickman were flocked up and feeding along.
 
I did see a flock of 40 down the road from one of the small farms I can access, and it looked to be 6-8 bigger blacker male birds in the back, but none of them were strutting. That was one morning this week. I was in a truck without binos, so could not zoom in on them and see exactly what they were.
 
Bgoodman30 said:
I hunted a property in southern Hickman on the last day of season and heard more birds than I have there in 3-4 years.. Granted it definitely doesn't have the birds it did 8-10 years ago.
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That could be a great sign for this year. I'll be anxious to see if they are still around this spring. I have seen some drastic one year swings in available birds/gobbling from one year to the next, in centrally located middle TN counties.
 
Andy S. said:
That could be a great sign for this year. I'll be anxious to see if they are still around this spring. I have seen some drastic one year swings in available birds/gobbling from one year to the next, in centrally located middle TN counties.
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Yeah it could all change by opening day but there was a healthy pile of jakes in there.. Even with the healthy turkey population the card pull showed an alarming number of predators, yotes, coons and bobcats running around everywhere.. This property and the neighbors has ample cover though.
 
I'm in W/SW Hickman myself and I've been seeing more birds than I've seen in 3 years although that's still less than a quarter what it was 5 years ago. Looks like I'll have around 15-20 toms to work with on the 10+ farms I have access to.
 
No drastic changes from population averages from past 5 years on my farms. One has a few less, another has a few more, the other 2 are unchanged.

I did secure access to a couple more private farms, so I'm excited about that.
 
On a statewide basis, I suspect the statewide kill will be little changed this year, camoflauging harm being caused per over-hunting. (Although human hunters may still be a tertiary factor, still one of the few factors we can control.)

The statewide fragility of turkey populations is somewhat camoflauged by "newer" turkey-hunting counties still having expanding flocks, while "older" long-established turkey-hunting counties have declining flocks. Add to this more hunters, maybe we're just killing a progressively higher percentage each year, somewhat feasting, before we help create the famine?
 
Where I hunt in Wilson Co ( Lasscassas ) 20 years ago in the morning you could hear 10/15 gobbles at day light ....now I am lucky to hear one. Turkey are not going to stay in the same area as deer. They are like gypsies they go where the food is.. What you see today maybe 3 miles away tomorrow !
 
TheLBLman said:
.........by "newer" turkey-hunting counties still having expanding flocks, while "older" long-established turkey-hunting counties have declining flocks.
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Exactly what I have seen over the last decade. Generally speaking, counties that held a good number of turkeys in 2010 are declining today, and counties that had few turkeys in 2010 are coming ahead these days. This is for my travels in middle and west TN.
 

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