That graph perfectly sums up my experience with the later season open. I am not the one smiling.

Spot on. That graph is the truth.

no question, your best graph yet

Caught another one of the smaller cat sized coons this morning….This one was a female that weighed in at 4.83 lbs…..I’m assuming these small ones are our dispersing adolescents that were born last year. That’s 6 coons and 2 possums so far with all of the coons being either young dispersing adolescents or roaming males likely looking to breed…..From my past trapping runs this seems to be pretty par for the course for this time of year when the females are denned up having babies……little movement amongst the older females…..All of this would mean that the adolescent coons are likely having the largest impact on nest raiding. To begin with they represent the largest number of cohorts of any group on the landscape. They also arent focused on breeding in their first year and they’re in the stage of life where they’re trying to rapidly grow……..which means large food demands…… Older females likely don’t raid that many nests in comparison because they arent moving much and older males are far fewer in comparison to the number of adolescents and likely focused more on breeding than anything….like bucks during the rut.

I say that to again point to the potential impact of the number of coon babies being produced due to females going into the den in really good shape from eating corn all winter. How many adolescent coons are roaming the landscape during nesting as a result??.....Also, if their numbers are artificially inflated during this time period then its very likely that they’re depleting some other natural food sources that are usually available during this time and amplifying the nest raiding effect.

This is just another minor part of the whole equation but something else that I think is likely having an impact on all of this is the manner in which we manage a lot of the SMZ’s……They’re mostly all shaded out with a closed canopy over them……barren of an understory……..full of privet in the midstory ……They should probably be much more full of riparian plant and animal life which would offer coons better food sources this time of year and decrease movement away from these watershed zones.

When I was a kid everybody trapped and coon hunted. Trapping was profitable. Matter of fact you never saw road kill. It got picked up quick. We also had loads of turkeys back then. I have no idea how a hen ever gets eggs hatched these days.

Learn how to hunt the short grass during this time of year. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel unless you’re just trying to stir the pot

Up to 14 coons and possums now with most of them being males......I've only caught 3 young female coons and one female possum. I know we all like to trap in the spring around nesting time but its probably gonna be just as important if not more to trap in Nov-Jan before the females disappear into dens.......My trapping efforts right now aren't really having much impact on next year's coon population because I'm not really impacting the females much.

With 12 days to go in the season here is where the numbers sit in comparison to last year’s totals……Keep in mind that there is more than just one variable influencing some of these numbers but generally speaking across the board it appears that the later your spring green-up occurs, the more the later starting date impacted you…..another way of looking at it is the farther north and the higher in elevation the more the impact.

It doesnt really seem necessary to me but iffin you were gonna divide it into two zones I think you would want to draw the line somewhere around here.

Something about the last map that I think is probably pretty important to point out is that Jackson Co likely has one of the very latest spring green up dates of any county due to being in the northern most part of the state PLUS having some of the highest elevations……So that means that our traditional starting dates of March 15th in relation to spring green up is the earliest in that county than just about any other….It would be about the equivalent of starting the season in Mobile and Baldwin counties in late Feb………yet Jackson Co has always had one of the best turkey populations in the state. This tells me that the early hunting hasn’t been detrimental to their population density….Therefore, backing up the starting date in south Alabama to March 10 or even March 1 shouldn't be detrimental either……It’s other factors that need to be addressed for population issues.

That makes a lot more sense than I thought it would. Well said and thought out. Let’s see what the haters have to say 🤣

Outback and 257 eventually resorted to just posting pictures of cats in the soil threads.........

It’s almost like AL needs zoned openers based on incredibly diverse lands/climate from south to north. Never thought of that………

That's interesting data and thought process on getting female coons earlier. My dog was having a fit the other night and had a possum cornered. I shot it with a pellet to the head and dog decided to get tough and grabbed it and shook her head. .. slinging 8 babies from her pouch. I kinda felt bad but that was a big dent in pop for one .17 cal pellet. They had been getting into our chicken house so hopefully saves some eggs and pullets down the line.

I never disagreed with you

I finally caught my first older female coon yesterday......She didn't have any milk or anything so I guess she either didn't have little ones, lost them, or had them early. We would probably make a greater impact by targeting these females in the fall winter

Even though we have different spring green-ups I don’t think we automatically have to divide everything up. In the end as long as we don’t kill “too many” then it doesn’t matter….I really think if we addressed the issues that need addressing then you could just start somewhere in the March 1-10 timeframe across the whole state and everything work out just fine. If you postpone decoy use until April 1 or later then you’ll likely balance out any additional early kill from moving the starting date back even further in the northern part of the state……A good happy medium would probably be opening the first Saturday in March statewide. In my opinion the main change that has occurred in recent times that has prompted this “turkey decline” business is the legalization of baiting and the impact its had on the coon population. That’s the first thing to address and it doesn’t have to be through eliminating that revenue stream for someone…..It could be balanced by adding another revenue stream through a trapping incentive. South Dakota has recently implemented one in their state.....The biggest problem I see with their incentive is that its only paying $10 per coon.....That really isnt enough $$$ to drive a major trapping effort I dont believe....It needs to be enough to get folks out trying to trap 100 coons......250 coons.......maybe even 500 in a season. Figure out a way to do that and then we'll see a difference. You'll see trapping catch fire if that happens

If anything I've said DIDN'T make sense to you........you probably need to go back and reread it.

While we’re on the topic……Check out the comparison in these two maps…..The first one is the one I made for last year’s gobbler harvest density…..If you rememeber, each county was measured by 1 gobbler killed per “X” amount of acres of land. The bottom map is our topography map but if you use your imagination a little bit then that’s also showing us a green-up map. I think turkey247 probably has a very valid case for why the south west portion of the state is getting screwed. Those folks who have been saying that Wilcox, Clarke, etc has plenty of turkeys probably arent too far off base…..The difference on the kill rate map I made in those folks on the western side versus the eastern side of south alabama is probably a lot simply due to how the first week of the season falls out in comparison to their green up. Those little dots of darker yellow probably have the best opportunities. Macon, Bullock, Russell and a few other counties are being heavily influenced by big swings in the other factors I’ve been talking about as well and that has a lot to do with the way those areas look on last year's map. When I redraw this same map for this year’s data those areas will be yellow and green again and it’ll dang near look just like the “green-up” map for that part of the state.