The study said that “a trained dog could not find OR had a harder time finding bird feathers that had changed over to the nesting scent”. Are you going to cherry pick that one comment out the whole video and use it to come to a conclusion that coyotes arent a factor??....I don’t think I’d bet the farm on that one…. What about the 48:00 minute mark where they quote coyote predation off the nest as the #1 cause of mortality for adult hens?? You reckon those trained dogs were given 28 days to look for those feathers?? Fawns arent supposed to put off a lot of scent either but coyotes somehow find and kill 60-70% of them in some areas.

Btw…….I’d bet the link with rain and predation that some of the studies show is revolving around the scenting conditions. It sounds like predation spikes when scenting conditions are optimal.

That’s not my contention. I mentioned that because it’s an interesting facet if the overall picture. It wasn’t cherry-picked to say anything absolute. It’s just another factor in the scheme of things. The wet hen theory is not anything that is surprising. Just like a wet dog everything has a smell when wet. Have you not been in the woods and smelled turkeys. I’ve done it on several occasions. Turkeys have a smell about them, have you not noticed when cleaning one.

I still doubt coyotes seek out turkeys. I’d bet they seek whatever they can find asap. Rabbits have a smell too. Quail also have a smell. Rats snakes and whatever else they may want to eat have a smell. All of those will be found along edges and why coyotes travel those edges. It’s not for turkeys in part it but more so for anything that is food for them.

My argument is hunters are a factor, period. To what degree is the question. Saying hunters are not is just not being honest. Guess what, there is a helluva lot more turkey hunters than it once was.

I cling to Larry’s mentioning “when hunters were asked if they would want larger limits and more days even at the detriment of the population”, most still wanted more limits and more time afield. That was on express series of duck hunters. I’m willing to bet that spills over to all other game animals. We’ve become very competitive about our accomplishments in the woods.

That has been and will always be my argument. I’m against greed and there was a time where I was probably the greediest turkey hunter around. There was an article written about the stages of a hunter. I find it very true. Some never progress to the final stages, some do.

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I apologize; I didn't mean to appear condescending, and I'm certainly not mad at you for presenting your views. But you are trying to influence public opinion, and I oppose your position. We have argued enough on here through the years that you know I am gonna eventually try to make a joke of my opponent's position. I thought The Turkey Fund was a pretty good one, but maybe not.

But you keep insisting that gobblers are more than just "sperm donors" in turkey reproduction. How? What else do you think they do to help raise poults?

My understanding of turkey biology is that the gobbler breeds the hen and then it doesn't matter if she never sees him again; his role is done. I learned that in 8th grade Ag in 1967 and have never heard anything to make me doubt the truth of it. I've never seen you present any facts to back up your idea that hunters are causing a population decline.

I think that most of the desire from hunters for more restrictions have nothing to do with biology, and much more to do with human jealousy. A lot of hunters can't bear the idea that someone else is killing more deer or turkeys than they are, and are all for restricting them. I always thought that was the primary reason so many were for the buck limit - gotta stop those greedy neighbors.

One other thing - we used to kill about a half million deer in the state prior to the buck limit, and had actually had years when we killed more does than bucks. Hunters were voluntarily taking more does because they were convinced it was in their best interest to do so. Now, we are back to killing more bucks than does and kill about half as many deer. And you say it's better. How? It looks to me like the buck limit has been a disaster for deer hunting.

Not according to what I’ve heard. I’ve heard that it’s better for a hen to be bred before every nest attempt, than the old way of thinking and one and done.

I can’t speak for the guy you posed this question to, but for me, I have seen bigger and more bucks since the 3 buck rule was implemented.

I wouldn't dispute that. I meant his role was done for that nesting cycle. I have read that some hens will breed again before a second attempt and some won't. I can't see where it would matter whether she was bred the next time by the same gobbler as before, or whether it's a different one.

Who said anything about being the same gobbler?

Nailed it......

Also nailed......

Sorry, I thought that was what you meant. I guess I didn't understand how you thought your point contradicted mine.

Not being one and done for multiple nestings was the contradiction to your opinion.

If social media ceased to exist I think a lot of this would go by the wayside. If you can't post it no one can be jealous of it!!!

That’s all good 👍🏼

I will say I’m not trying to influence anyone just in disagreement with overall premise that hunting has no impact. If that were true then no limits and no season as long as we were killing all the other predators. Right? I mean that’s why I keep mentioning seasons closed etc…. Also having to be restocked. Coyotes weren’t around in the 60s and coons and Fox were definitely trapped since their pelts had value. DDT kept raptors at bay along with those old men that hated them. The only factor back then was wa hunting unless you can think of something else back then as tossing had to be closed.

I’ve been turkey hunting for 30 plus years and half the time you’ve been at it.

The changes I’ve seen is opening flocks of 40-50 birds are now 1-2 gobblers with 3 or so hens. No big flocks. That covers opening from Wolf Creek to Sam R Murphy to here along the creek. The other buggy is the number of hunters in pursuit. I hunted Thomas family in my early years and they may have been 6-10 guys on the entire area. Sporting good stores had very few turkey hunting products available.

What does it look like now?

Same as duck hunting

Coyotes arent that simple…….They don’t just randomly run roads day after day hoping to run across random prey with nothing more to it than that…….Successful events where they find or catch food changes behavior…… A coyote recognizes the conditions that revolves around his positive event……Its Pavlov’s bell basically…….Getting a treat was accompanied by these certain conditions…..instead of ringing a bell it’s the location, smell, time of year, etc…. That’s why the percentage of coyotes that are successfully catching a hen off the nest is probably very important. If you never give that dog the treat then you can ring that bell all day long and it wont mean that much to him. Like I said before, the higher the turkey population…..the more likely for individual coyotes to catch one.

I bet there was a time period probably between about 1990-2000 where expanding coyote populations had an abundance of nesting targets that were using lesser secondary nesting habitat. That would have had the potential to have created big change in some areas if a bunch of successful predation events were followed up with a bunch of nest flushing ......

I keep seeing this on FB

Then I guess I should have been more precise in my comment. I meant that the gobbler's only role in reproduction is breeding the hen. He may breed another one 5 minutes later, and he may breed the same one the next day, and he may breed hundreds more in his lifetime, but the only role he ever has in reproduction is breeding the hen. He doesn't sit on the eggs or assist in rearing poults in any way.

Carter said:


>>>That’s all good 👍🏼
I will say I’m not trying to influence anyone just in disagreement with overall premise that hunting has no impact. If that were true then no limits and no season as long as we were killing all the other predators. Right? I mean that’s why I keep mentioning seasons closed etc…. Also having to be restocked. Coyotes weren’t around in the 60s and coons and Fox were definitely trapped since their pelts had value. DDT kept raptors at bay along with those old men that hated them. The only factor back then was wa hunting unless you can think of something else back then as tossing had to be closed.<<<

I don't disagree with what you say about how things have changed, and I recognize that those changes do indeed reduce the quality of hunting. Unless you have an insane amount of land, what your neighbors do will have an effect on you. And if you are hunting public land, the problems with more hunters are obvious. Where we seem to disagree is on whether or not legal hunting has an effect on poult production. I don't think it does, unless it's maybe an unusual situation where you have very few turkeys anyway. It seems that you think it does. Or am I misunderstanding?

I don't know for sure what happened to cause you to go from hundreds of turkeys down to more normal levels, but I doubt all those hens were shot, and I doubt hunting had anything to do with it.

If we aren't trying to influence public opinion, then we are really wasting our time. Of course, considering how few undecided folks there are reading the turkey forum in June, I should probably admit that it IS a waste of time.

I’m not an educated man but nobody will convince me a predator or trained dog can’t smell a wet hen.