I can hear PCP saying now that he doesn’t think food is a limiting factor in any way…….but keep in mind that we are talking about being limited relative to the number of birds present……It may be that for example the southern counties have good nesting success and good brooding success which ends up producing a good population of birds and therefore they exploit a limited amount of winter food and end up having nest initiation being the limiting factor to further growth…..Introduce chit tons of winter corn and that hole gets filled and the scales tilt to likely another factor eventually controlling population limits…..maybe its still winter food but it’s at a higher threshold now

So if this holds true…..just sayin…..then it would mean that there’s likely a lot of those blue and red counties that could potentially benefit from trapping the coons off of the corn piles…..Those areas could very well be benefiting from feeding the hens in the winter but that benefit is being negated through adding additional nest predation from the increased coon populations……or it could be like in the mountains where they had a lot of winter food (mast) but lacking in nesting cover and the additional winter corn didn’t really help but the areas still received the negative side of the increased coons

Not to complicate the chart any further but I would imagine if nest initiation were being impacted then the number of eggs being laid per nest would most likely be as well…..If you have poor nest initiation due to below average health coming out of winter then it would only stand to reason that most hens would have lower clutch sizes as well……and vice versa if that winter food limitation got filled or increased then both nest initiation and average clutch size should increase…..hypothetically anyways…….even if winter food is not a current limiting factor, if you fill one of the other holes like nest predation then you just have a higher ceiling before winter food does kick in…

I wonder if these off years that Jackson and similar counties are having is coinciding with mast crop failures……Anybody got a good memory and remember which years failed?? I’ve heard old timers say that turkeys don’t gobble as well in the springs following an acorn failure……I wonder if that’s a reflection of their physical health following a lean winter…..as well as the nest initiation rate and clutch size

Jackson..... 432.....694..... 645..... 551..... 717..... 771

I think you need to look at what happened a little over 20 years ago in the south. Hurricane Ivan, it did massive damage to timber, most had to cut anything that was left standing when they tried to gather the pick up sticks left behind. Most of the south part of the state was replanted near the same time and you are now seeing the benefit of a year or 2 after the first thinning. That's at least my theory.

That’s a good theory……it could very well be the culprit……I’d want to look at the specifics a little more to see if it lined up……Was their major damage all the way over into Barbour, Henry, Dale??......Has timber been cut at a higher rate in the southern counties over the last 5-6 years than normal??.......You still have the back end issues of mills only taking so much no matter how much is standing

I still think that adding in massive amounts of winter corn HAS to have an effect of some type......Did ridgestalker’s hen that laid 17 eggs stay in a corn pile eating all winter?? Someone mentioned in another discussion about how a bunch of big hardwoods got cut down back in the day and I said that it probably impacted turkeys more by the new habitat promoting more predators but I may have been wrong…..It may have very well been a two fold impact by increasing predators AND lowering winter food availability……That may be a big factor we’re over looking……I bet water oaks are very under appreciated food sources that have been lost over time…..That tends to be the ones that get cut out in select thinnings….Corn may be subsidizing those winter food sources.....Its also feeding coons too though at the same time

If we could chart it out on something like a GIS map of the state we would likely see a pretty substantial difference in the amount of winter turkey food available from area to area…..Like I mentioned earlier, all it would take would be having the combination of good nesting, good brooding, and poor winter food sources to see that becoming the limiting factor for a certain area……Research says that the number of eggs in a nest can vary from 4-17 and that the rate of adult hens simply initiating nesting can range from 0-90%......Those types of numbers when multiplied together have the potential to DRASTICALLY change the total number of eggs on the landscape for the good or bad…….100 hens at 50% initiation and avg 9 eggs per nest equals…..450 eggs………..100 hens at 90% initiation and 13 eggs per nest equals 1,170 eggs…….I believe that's all hinging on how much food each hen gets during the winter months here in Alabama....…..which is a function of the total amount of winter food available compared to the number of birds present

I’m not sure what the typical ranges are for what’s seen in Alabama…..I think those lower end numbers come from extreme conditions in the northern parts of the turkeys range…..However, we are still seeing some range occurring…..One study by TFT showed a 75% nest initiation rate…..I may do a little bit of Googling on that one and see what I find…..If anyone knows of anything off the top of your head feel free to post it….I would have to think that mast crop failures play a big role for some areas

Updated Map..........Again this is compared to "average" for the last 5 years.........It would be nice to know if there was any significant changes with trapping in certain areas......I wonder about counties like Dekalb and Morgan for example that are outliers for everything else around them.....Did a big club start intensely trapping??.....Did someone like johnv spring up and start trapping for multiple properties??

Please post the above map and numbers when the season ends. Very telling.

Will do.......