Made a quick map this morning just to see how each county was running at this point in the season......This is current harvest compared to the average of the last 5 seasons......Them Conecuh Co boys are getting it done this year

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

Anecdotal, but in our small corner of NE Washington there have been 4 gobblers taken so far on 700 acres, and I heard 4 more this morning along our big creek.
We also have a herd of 10-12 jakes on camera roaming around.

2-3 years ago we were lucky to hear a gobbler every 5th hunt.

Not much has changed as far as our management. We typically burn a small section ourselves every spring as time allows, but are not on a rotation program (yet, about to be).
We aren't trapping any more than we have before and Lord knows we have a healthy yote population.

I think we've just had a couple good hatches in a row.

Nest Initiation Rate ______
Adult Hen Survival Rate_____
Nesting Success Rate ______
Poult Survival Rate ______


I may be missing something here but I think those are the 4 main variables and then each one of those has a set of variables influencing them…..but those are the root factors…..Each season nature is going to fill in the blanks with some number in each one……The good years are probably when all the blanks end up with average to good numbers

Here’s a chart of the variables at play that fluctuate from year to year and why its hard to pin point one factor as to why any given year may be good or bad……and I’m not even listing all of the different rabbit holes…..Each one though has its legs and subset of variables on the chart that’s feeding back into what we see as the end total…..There’s just a lot of pathways that can be effected

I’ve been happy with the numbers on multiple properties from dekalb, Clarke, lauderdale, limestone, Elmore, Montgomery, and Colbert that I have seen a solid increase with increases in Jake’s and overall numbers. This map doesn’t tell the story I think in the population as multiple others in Madison and other counties that have seen the same I creases.

Here’s the trend data for those counties……Those all seem to either be holding fairly steady or trending upwards.....Montgomery seems to have a good bit of an up down swing to it......Keeping in mind that we still have a few weeks to go for the 2025 total


..............2025.....'24.........'23.......'22........'21........'20


Dekalb..... 165..... 192..... 181..... 134..... 156..... 212
Clarke..... 281..... 414..... 385..... 363..... 321..... 313
Lauderdale.. 166..... 298..... 272..... 205..... 221..... 237
Limestone.. 54..... 74..... 82..... 76..... 46..... 67
Madison.. 186..... 266..... 256..... 223..... 267..... 248
Montgomery.. 170..... 219..... 301..... 200..... 174..... 229
Colbert..... 161..... 265..... 221..... 194..... 213..... 168

Looking across all the counties they actually all tend to be running fairly steady or slightly increasing……Depending on how Jackson finishes up the season they might be one of the few counties that you could label as declining……I mean as far kills go anyways…..

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

If anyone has a particular county they’d like to see shout it out and I’ll post it……Here’s a few other notable ones folks on here might be interested in……

.............2025.......'24........'23........'22.........'21.......'20

Bullock..... 159..... 255..... 322..... 248..... 173..... 268
Blount..... 178..... 240..... 269..... 227..... 188..... 228
Chilton..... 233..... 345..... 383..... 323..... 299..... 300
Coosa..... 292..... 408..... 394..... 323..... 366..... 451
Fayette..... 184..... 275 .....252..... 212..... 258..... 317
Monroe..... 278 .....341..... 325 .....265..... 284..... 262
Tuscaloosa..... 271..... 358 .....375..... 326..... 348..... 373

I used to think that if we got a lot of rain north of us(swole our river/creeks around here) that it would run the birds out of the river bottoms etc. This season has me re thinking that hypothesis. I’ve found more crawfish in turkey’s crawl this season and I think they’re sticking to those bottoms like glue and eating like kings when the water recesses a bit? Who knows. Just going off what I’ve seen this season. My “turkey philosophy” is always subject to change

Conecuh co don’t have any turkeys. Not sure how they kilt that many.

Looks like they've seen a pretty good increase in kills over the last 5-6 years......The 246 is this year's current total so they'll probably be back up around 300 again before its over.....Maybe more folks are using the public land because of youtubers??

Conecuh..... 246..... 273..... 301..... 205..... 188..... 149

Those that pay close attention “know” we are behind. Easter is late this year. Full moons…..I still think there’s a lot of killin left to do. I just hope all the game camera batteries are dead, fields are too high to hunt, and folks are worried about their wakeboard boat too much to hunt these last couple weeks.

Yep, turkeys done shut down for the year. Nothing to see here. 😎

Breams on bed. Turkeys got to wait til next year.

So here’s a color coordinated map to visually show the harvest trends over the last 5 years……Its interesting to look at it from this perspective……The counties circled in blue represent counties that have pretty much had harvest stay the same over the last five years……The counties circled in yellow have seen a slight increase in harvest…….The counties circled in green have seen a fairly substantial increase in harvest ……and the counties circled in red have seen a trend downward……

Looks like the closed canopied mountain areas are the ones declining while the southern most counties have seen the biggest increases…..Cleburne had a few down years in there as well but they rebounded last year so I kept them blue…..they could probably get a few red stripes though …same with Dekalb….I suspect those mountains full of open understory are the most impacted by increasing coon populations with corn

I may be wrong about the coons and corn but the pattern for the declining counties definitely seems to line up with those most mountainous areas whatever the underlying cause may be……

So why have all of those southern most counties been on the increase over the last 5 years? There's a definite pattern to it

Here’s my thoughts on it……..I think each unique area like the mountains or the quail plantation belt, etc has a different limiting factor from that chart I made earlier in this thread that’s controlling population growth….. and whatever that limiting factor was for those southern counties was reduced or that hole got filled……Maybe winter food sources were lacking in those counties due to a limited amount of oaks, etc and hens were coming out of winter in just average condition which was limiting nest initiation and all the corn they’re feeding on during deer season now is actually helping to prop up their winter weights and nest initiation has gone from say 60% to 90%…….maybe not though…….maybe it’s a different factor……It isnt just a one off annual up and down type increase though…..Its been a pretty steady 5 year increase for most of those counties with some of them seeing 50-75% increases in harvest over that period….It seems to be trending back down though over the last couple of years so maybe something else has kicked in now to counter that growth

If we go back to our chart and add in corn it would look kind of like below……Keeping in mind that all of those x and y’s are influencing variables of some sort that I just didn’t write out due to limited space…….You have to assume that adding in the variable of “chit tons of corn” definitely has impacts…..Due to differences in other factors involved though it may just work out that some areas benefit…….some areas balance out at neutral…..and other areas are negatively impacted…..with areas of limited nesting cover likely being the most negatively impacted....

One of the main questions to answer would be…..”Was winter food and nest initiation a limiting factor for some areas before?”…….