Well through the first 3 days of the season (including youth hunt) there have been 3526 turkeys reported......that's compared to last years 3701.......That's pretty dang close for statewide numbers

As close as the totals are from year to year........on a county by county basis its all over the place with large differences.

Can you back color county’s yellow that open March 25 and back color gray counties that open april 1?

I could probably outline them but I dont think the basic paint program I'm using allows me to make the shape boxes opaque......For right now though its basically all of the northwest counties showing no change....

I didn't know people game checked turkeys

Im close to the Marshall/ Morgan line and have more turkeys than we've had in the last 22 plus years. We have a hunting preserve close that spends alot on managing turkeys plus all my trapping. It has definitely made a difference but seems to of made a big jump in the last 3 years to the good.

The central part of the state had a lot of rain for opening weekend so that probably drove numbers down.

What % of turkeys you think actually get checked? I going with less than 50% for sure

I’d guess 1/3 - 1/2

I'd say your probably right or at least that's some of it..........Rainfall map for last 72 hours......I guess that should have saved a lot of gobblers for another week for those areas

We have now caught up to and surpassed last year’s numbers for this same point in the season……We’re at 5,862 this season compared to 5,402 last season at this time. Here’s the breakdown now by county……

Are these percentages calculated by days into the season (youth weekend + 7) or the actual calendar date (last year would have been youth weekend + 17)?

The number of days into the season.........We started the season last year on a Friday……..I counted that Friday, Sat, and Sun as opening weekend…..Then the following week I counted Mon-Thurs as opening week…..the following Fri, Sat, Sun as weekend two and so on and so forth……We started on Sat this year so I counted Sat, Sun, Mon as opening weekend and Tues-Fri as opening week……Basically though this is still youth season plus seven days.

So I think the general consensus is that the new season frameworks were designed to limit harvest. Honestly probably not a terrible idea, especially until we can get a good grasp on the actual decline.

I would be curious to see a graph or some kind of visual showing the harvest numbers by the week of the year. I would guess the harvest numbers for the first week of May are substantially less than the third and fourth week of March. We are essentially swapping 5 days on the front for 5 days on the back end. If the difference in those numbers is 3-4,000 birds, it looks like a really good restocking program without the added cost.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to kill ‘em with the best of them but what the state did has a lot of potential to be a success. Assuming harvest limitation was the goal of course.

May or may not know a few that haven't been

Assuming harvest limitation will have an impact on the decline. It isn't cause and effect. Limiting the harvest was a goal but it wont change the population trajectory.

One might think if harvest numbers go up too much , Chuck and Co will lower the yearly bag limit , again.

Yep!

What I can’t seem to wrap my head around is the fact that we’ve been down this road before. The birds were damn near extinct with only a few pockets left when restocking started. I’m sure I could find out with a little research, but I wasn’t around to know what did and didn’t happen prior to the restoration and immediately after restocking. Seems like we would have possibly answered a lot of our own questions if we looked at the past.

Hmmm…. Sounds like a principle we could apply in other places but hey what do I know…..

If you don’t GC your turkey does that make you a low down poacher?