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Trails Cameras and turkey decline

Roost 1":2yftrfsy said:
Either they are feeding them or you dont have any nesting habitat!! Either way seems like you know why you dont have many birds....
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I know the neighbors very well and are very good friends with them they don't feed them. You're right about the nesting habitat though but there's nothing I can do about that. My grandfather owns the property and makes a living off of it, open fields for cattle pasture don't provide very good nesting habitat.
 
ZachMarkus":aoxdswup said:
Roost 1":aoxdswup said:
Either they are feeding them or you dont have any nesting habitat!! Either way seems like you know why you dont have many birds....
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I know the neighbors very well and are very good friends with them they don't feed them. You're right about the nesting habitat though but there's nothing I can do about that. My grandfather owns the property and makes a living off of it, open fields for cattle pasture don't provide very good nesting habitat.
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I understand completely...Neighbors to one of my TN farms are feeding heavily however my farm has excellent nesting habitat and the hens come there to nest. Although my season started out rough by mid-April I had birds. We killed 2 that had crops full of cracked corn. Its a shame that your neighbors cant get on the same management plan as you.
 
We kill several turkeys each year in middle TN over the first few weeks, mainly in all hardwoods habitat, and rarely do they ever have anything in their craw (which is to be expected). With that said, there have been a few times when a turkey had whole kernels of corn in the craw, and there was not a corn field for miles. It is pretty obvious when this happens that feeding is going on somewhere in the general area. I have always been a big believer that the only feeding going on is by those who can access areas with a truck or a 4 wheeler, because 98% of today's hunters are too lazy to walk a half mile, much less tote a 50 pound bag of corn any distance.
 
Roost 1":2ec39133 said:
Its been my experience that gobbers wont stay with the hens that arent breeding. Jennies dont usually breed, or not least until late in season. Now I have seen bunches of jakes keep gobblers ran off or shut up.
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My experience as well. Jennies just don't care about the gobblers, and the gobblers will only come to jennies to see if they will squat for them... if not, they just move on. The jennies are much more concerned with being next to their flockmates rather than any male birds.
 
Setterman":31cefdak said:
I've been wondering if the trail cam craze is impacting turkey numbers. Most folks use corn to attract deer to the camera site, which also attracts turkeys, along with predators looking for an easy meal.

If it possible that this is contributing to the decline many are experiencing?

How many people seeing a decline run cameras with corn? How many seeing no decline run cameras with corn?
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We run cameras on salt only from end of June till August. We add corn to the salt licks from August till first of October. In my experience, it is very, very hard to ascertain whether the large gobbler groups photographed in late summer/ early fall will ever stick around the following spring. We've never found a pile of feathers, nor captured a predator on cam stalking the turkeys on the bait sites. OFC we use aflatoxin free corn to prevent collateral damage to the turkeys while conducting annual deer census.

I can't say if things would be different in the spring over bait sites, as we pull all our cameras after deer season ends to minimize wear and tear on them and get more useful life out of them. I would think it wouldn't be any different in the spring, though. I suspect the biggest problem with corn and cameras is the potential for aflatoxin toxicity wiping out the birds rather than predator loss. I suspect hunting over bait is a small problem overall, but one that can really negatively impact local populations
 
Setterman":2fqbt2zo said:
[

Not just on this site... Tn wide. Allowing baiting until 10 days before hunting is a death sentence.
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Really? I very rarely run up on any corn in the woods during hunting season. Maybe I hunt in an area that doesn't have that happen much.[/quote]

In the last 5 years I've killed 3 birds in TN that didn't have corn in their crop. So 17 birds are finding whole corn on the side of a mountain where there's not a corn field for 80 miles or more. It's a huge problem not just here[/quote]

Wow I have never killed one with corn in their craw. Most have nothing in there but sometimes they have clover. Interesting.
 
muddyboots":30h0o7co said:
I don't think it's as easy to kill gobblers over corn that yawl think. I know some who bait I think and they hardly ever kill. I mean pretty much never
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They must be pretty poor hunters..... Just my opinion but I think it's a bigger problem than most realize in TN and KY. Spoke with a local taxidermist last week, he told me about 60% of birds brought to his shop have corn in them!!!!
 
Seriously. I know a Guy Who used to do it a lot. He says by cameras lots of turkeys until breeding starts and then they abandon the food. I'm not saying people don't kill by baiting I'm just saying i dont think its a slam dunk.
 
It isnt a slam dunk unless the baited area is also near good nesting.


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I believe nesting habitat is chosen over grains.
Now, first week of season or so could be different.

But that's why I've always said I would rather see someone shoot a gobbler over a corn pile than a decoy.

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