For the life of me, I don’t understand what else it is going to take for state agencies to stop with this season delay & harvest limit nonsense and start getting creative on incentivizing landscape change and predator reduction that will lead to greater poult and hen survival. The hunters and land managers will do most all of the work on their behalves, if they would just freakin do their job and lead it.

It wouldn’t cost them an extra penny either. Admit they were going in the wrong direction, put the seasons back where they belong, and use the gws and biologists already on the payroll to do outreach and education on land and predator management.

Makes you think that producing more turkeys is not what this is about.

Depending on how they did a habitat/trapping incentive program, it would certainly cost the states some $. But I GUARANTEE folks who love the wild turkey would not only participate, they would pay money to fund the “produce more turkeys” program. And the only incentive the states would have to offer would be extra tags to those who produce turkeys for everyone to enjoy, instead of this silly, short-sighted, “this is the only knob we have to turn” bullchit that Dr. Chamberlain often spews but is too stupid when it comes to human psychology to understand he could also TURN THE KNOB upward instead of downward in select cases to get the state’s desired results across the landscape. But as Mr. Steve so eloquently pointed out, I’m beginning to believe having more turkeys really isn’t their goal at all for some states (Alabama included).

If folks that love the wild turkey, as you put it, should already be doing these things. So, a program shouldn’t/wouldn’t show as much, if any, gains as one might think. Also, how would one go about proving that they “produced more turkeys” to get the extra tags?

So what I heard and no I did not listen to the entire hr but they said in the one study they had 0% recruitment then 40%, then 33% in 3 consecutive yrs with no landscape change, no predator change etc so basically the turkeys recruutment may just range 40% no matter what you do or don't do? I will try to listen to more later but thought that was interesting

There’s absolutely annual variation…….That’s different though than long term growth or decline

I give you Exhibit A. A perfect example of the kind of people who end up in positions like the one Chuck Sykes holds. Absolutely tone deaf on relating to and motivating people.

Right but why would I trap, spend thousands of dollars planting, hours of time burning if all of it may result in the exact same result as if I had not done any of the things.

And why would anybody be a DGT disciple? Why would you rather have less/later seasons and less enjoyable season frameworks? Why, other than gobbler harvest jealousy? Why? I bet it’s that jealousy part - like it’s always been

Who supports DGT? Who is jealous? Who decides what is more or less enjoyable?

To me more gobblers is the goal, good on people who try to find ways to make that happen. If there is no way to make that happen so be it. More enjoyable means more turkeys I don't whine about the trees being green or the temps being to hot etc etc.

Don’t know how you jumped to that. You gonna need some markers, though. I guess you haven’t gotten that far in your plan? I guess it’s easier to deflect than give examples. 🤷🏼‍♂️

It’s funny to watch you two hold the line

Fun to watch you whine about anything and anyone you don't agree with. I want more gobbling turkeys, you say you have plenty, thats great! Congrats hope you kill a pile of them but for a lot of hunters we are not the same as you. I want answers on causes of turkey decline, answers on what can actually put more turkeys in the areas we hunt. Instead of answers all you do is shout it's garbage and you have an agenda anytime someone says anything you don't agree with, maybe you have the agenda? In this video they basically say nothing helps or hurts turkey populations and they just may vary by 40% annually for no rhyme or reason. If that is the case and it's just hit or miss based on where property is then we can stop doing habitat/trapping and just hope for the best.

Yep

I thought it was interesting when they talked about how studies are showing that hunters are killing about the same percentage of gobblers across every state regardless of season dates and bag limits…..Did I understand that correctly?

Is that the same as duck hunters. Same number of ducks being killed but average number of ducks per hunter has dropped significantly.

Maybe that what all the complaining is about.

Then again it could be some are used to seeing and hearing more birds than they are now.
As far as this jealousy thing. Maybe it’s more about being less greedy and more concern about the resource. Doesn’t matter who says what because it’s all about personal perspective.

I’ll say this one more time and shut up about it. 15-20 years ago the season went from March 20 to March 15. Up here it went from April 1 to a few days earlier.

According to a friends research we had a March 20 opening in the 60s, season closed during the 70s and restocked. Opened April 8 in the 80s and we had an explosion in population when I stated in the early 90s and had tons of birds until 07-08ish when numbers really fell off. That is in Colbert and Lauderdale. Lauderdale don’t reopen for 25 or so years and had serious numbers for a while but have fallen off. Same with southern Tennessee so it’s not just isolated. Then there’s these report thruout the southeast about plummeting turkey populations.

I get those numbers were probably artificially high.

Similar to DGT. I argued with both Chuck and Chamberlain that focusing on this one theory, that I couldn't put the logic together, would lead to a waste of time and hunter confidence in the State to manage turkeys. Focusing on this takes away from the focus on the real problem - recruitment of poults into the fall population. Changing how many or when you kill gobblers can not make more turkey poults.



I have pushed, unsuccessfully, for a study that simply ranked a large sample of individual properties on a scale of poor, good, excellent (hard to define turkey populations and what parameters to decide these rankings) and do a good habitat assessment to see what habitat practices, coverage of each habitat type, trapping, feeding, harvest rate and pressure, etc made a difference. Recruitment may vary from 0-40% but, as we all know, some places consistently recruit higher than others and therefore have better populations. With the data coming out showing the vast differences in public vs private, this would tell a lot.

Thanks for the reply gobbler. It was an honest question I had to jughead. You have to have some way of showing that something is working or not.

The good thing about the perceived notion(whether true or not) of a population decline in the turkey population is all the current research. Without it, we wouldn’t have all this research going on. I’ve been more interested in the findings of the latter years of the poult’s life cycle to adulthood study than any of the others. I, like you have alluded, think the flying predators have a huge impact on this stage, as well as, through adulthood.

I’ve got a question for you gobbler since it’s been an observation for years

Jerry’s place and other landowners along with TVA lands along the creek system had numerous ag fields of hay, cattle and row crop. Always have been told hens migrate to open fields to hug for egg laying and poult rearing. Surrounding that area has hardwood drains and pine ridges for miles and miles. That creek bottom would entail 8 plus miles of creek bottoms.

Would this and or did this create a disportionate population. We’d see those big flocks occasionally passing thru during winter but for the most part it was an early spring thru spring sightings and then gobblers seemed to head back to the hills.

I always felt that was why we had so many birds to hunt. Would that not lead to killing too many? Thats some of my concern since hunters flocked to that area once word got out about the numbers there.

Thats a good portion of my beliefs

Then there’s a friend’s place that seems to hold the same number of birds year around. He has fields with deep drain of hardwoods splitting his place. His population seems to have held steady for years and years. Then again he’s surrounded by large expanses of mixed habitat all around.

I agree with this, we lack info on what is happening to turkey poults, especially after they reach flight stage. There is a strong interest in researching this and I expect to see something (in another State besides Alabama unfortunately) started soon. I agree also with NOT just throwing money at habitat practices that 1) cost the taxpayers money, 2) may have positive effects but no solid data and 3) landowners should be doing for themselves. That's why if we had the study I mentioned, we could rank habitat practices and their effectiveness in increasing or maintaining a turkey population. What is and is not necessary.



No doubt that winter/spring flocks inflate perception of high turkey populations, especially visible areas like ag fields. It's normal for turkeys to disperse out of winter flocks to good nesting habitat, etc, in spring. Even in excellent habitat that holds good winter flocks, they still disperse. Example, in the peak populations around here, I put out a deer hunter in a large ag field (hundred or so ac) with hundreds of ac of quail type upland piney woods to the south, large acreage of hardwood bottoms on a creek to the north. After dropping him off and on my way to my stand I could see most of the field. I saw a group of 20+ poults and hens, a flock of 35 longbeards, another flock of 30 or so poults and hens, rode up to a chufa patch on the side of the big field and got in a box stand where I could see part of the big field, the chufa patch and a powerline through the bottom with a greenfield. A group of 75 poults and hens came out of the hardwoods into the greenfield from the other direction of the field (came from northeast) and while they were there, a group of 30 + hens and poults came into the chufa. A group of 6 longbeards walked through the hens and poults headed to the big field. That is roughly 200 turkeys in an area I probably only could see 100 acres. Never seen anything like it before or since. Come spring, however, there were the 3-4 gobblers roosting on the creek that would end up in the big field during the day and a few, scattered, gobblers hanging in the pineywoods for the season. Of course we saw hens in the pineywoods and the big field during season but I would expect 100-150 or those turkey dispersed to surrounding properties despite this place having all the habitat components turkeys need and was well managed. There is research suggesting hens will migrate over 10 miles out of winter flocks in river bottoms to the nearest upland nesting/brooding cover.

Bear in mind that, for instance, I say pineywoods are good nesting and brood rearing cover. However that would also be "burned" pineywoods with a lush understory and a 2 year return interval. Unburned pine ridges may or may not be good nesting cover and without fire is terrible brood cover. It is certainly possible for your ag field edges to be the best nesting cover around. It is typically NOT great nesting cover unless there is little else available. But, as has been noted, turkeys at their height, were everywhere and successfully used habitats that were not ideal. It ain't that way anymore. I think they only use the best habitats now because there are less birds.

Flying cats I’ve heard them referenced to do a number on them.

I now see more raptors than at any time in my life

My little flock of 4 hens and 22 poults is now down to 15 poults the other day. They’re bigger than chickens so they should be good so they say.

On the other thread about trapping. I say go for it but don’t think that is that huge from year to year but overall I’m sure it is. I’m seeing poults everywhere. I mean everywhere and I know those places are like our farm and no one is trapping. I think everything lined up in the poult factory for this year. In bad years I’d bet money it makes a difference, but what the other factors? and can they been manipulated and utilized?

Like I mentioned a few months ago, I think it’s what it is and population is just gonna cycle up and down and that’s just all there is to it.