I guess this is a quality turkey management question but what percent of gobblers would you want to take off a place in any given season? I've got family land that I don't want to take too many birds off of but still want to be able to hunt them.

Half of them.

All of them or 100% if you prefer.

If they gobble and have at least an 8 inch beard, I will do my best to eliminate their existence. See the post that YEKRUT posted about killing 35 birds off a 1200 acre tract year after year. That is like the Little Bighorn of turkey hunting but evidently it had minimal to no effect on the population over time.

If the habitat is there, they will return and I have no problem making room for the new residents. And then killing them too.

Dr. B

I don't know but it is an interesting question. A biologist at Mississippi State told me years ago that if you did not shoot jakes that you couldn't kill enough mature gobblers to hurt a place. He said turkeys will find a way to die on their own. That's why some years you seem to have plenty of them and some years you don't seem to have any, even though it seems nothing has changed with the habitat. Just passing on what he said whether he is right or not I don't know... but on our place some yrs are better than others

I personally like to leave some long beards for seed... but not in all cases. Have had turkey leases in the past when we left some for seed and then had the lease yanked out from under us after the season ended.

Depending on the size of the property, I may not take but one or two birds. There may be more birds there, but I won't kill them.

Kill all you can. I don't think a hunter can harm a population. Some years you will have lots some not so much.

I honestly believe their are 2 to 3 times as many birds as you hear. They don't all gobble every day and there are always birds you don't know about as well as those birds that are moving to look for hens.

Plus those birds that are moving across miles that gobbler talks about.

Totally agree with n2deer

my brother and a couple three friends killed every gobbling bird on a fairly small(200acre) tract over the course of the whole season. I tried to convince em that they were killing birds from ALL the adjoining property and it would affect next years hunting. To no avail, they never let up.

Next year they killed ONE bird, saw very little gobbler sign. Next year no gobblers killed by them. They gave the place up.

We hunters aren't the only predators out there killing birds, add a bad hatch and over killing will come back to haunt ya......

If it's not prime property you can kill a place out. IMO

Interesting question but I tend to side with those that believe you can't kill too many. Certain properties may not have this luxury. My hunting club has 500 acres on one side of the highway and 2500 on the other side. The best turkey hunting seems to be on the 500 acre tract. I wouldn't hesitate to kill most of the gobblers I hear on that tract because it is surrounded by thousands of acres of equally good turkey habitat. More birds will find it before next season rolls around. Like eyedoc said, by killing more this year, you are making room for more new ones to move in. Turkeys have a much larger home range than deer do.

Having said that, the scenario that BhamFred described could be true too. If you have a 200 acre habitat surrounded by pastures that stay bushhogged and there is a shortage of quality nesting and poult rearing habitat, you could hurt yourself. If you are surrounded by good habitat (roosting trees, thick cover for raising poults, open areas for finding insects) then you likely can't hurt the population. It will replenish itself every 2 years anyhow.

I have about 900 acres of of pretty good turkey habitat. Surrounded by mostly timber company land. On a conservative guess Id say we have maybe 10 mature gobblers and maybe 10 jakes, maybe up to double that. In the fall I've seen large flocks up to 30 hens and 5 gobs while deer hunting.

I wish I knew the answer to that... We have killed 40 longbeards the past three years...13 in '11...13 in '12 and 14 in '13... We have killed 16 this year...Which is 56 over four years...Thats a lot of turkeys... Over these past few years...every October and November we continue to see 10..12..15 longbeards in groups... I have been wondering if we have been hurting the population.... But it doesn't seem so... I hope it continues to stay this good... But as long the numbers continue to show up in the fall...I see no need to cut back on the killers...

sounds like you have an awesome place

It's mediocre at best... I have had better...

Y'all need anymore members?

You about 6 months to short... We took one and losing one....He ain't being replaced... We have too many killers... Two limits already...and probably one more to come...

If you have a property that the birds favor and has the correct habitat you can kill as many as you want. As much hell as gobbler catches here, I do believe birds, especially gobblers, range and rotate more than most people think.

On a place that I hunt there is a pond with a good sized island that has huge pines on it. It is almost a guarantee that there will be turkeys roosted there. I've hunted this place for about 5 years and probably killed 15 birds in the area. Every time you kill a bird there he is replaced within a day or two. Even on a day to day basis there may be 1 gobbler, 2 gobblers, or 10 jakes there but there will be a breeding turkey there with hens. On a place like this, I think it is one of the preferred roosting areas and I think there will be gobblers there until something ruins that habitat.

I do think that you could kill off birds on less desirable property but even that will only last for a short period of time as long as we can enjoy healthy turkey populations

X2

I think we are going to drop one this coming year...Too many killers... Guess I will have to start from the bottum up...