Do you feel the Covid lock down year had any effect on your State Turkey Population? In our state during the spring lock down we had people who usually didn't turkey hunt out in the woods turkey hunting. I had people who never pattern a shotgun trying to find or borrow shells, calls and other turkey related items. I saw a huge number of people park on private land / farms that usually only have these numbers of people hunting during deer season. I feel after the Spring kill during this Covid lock down in our state they used these kill numbers in deciding to roll the season back 2 weeks now in Tenn... Did you see a big number increase in Public land Hunting during the lock down?
Interesting take. I just looked and Virginia Turkey harvest was one of the highest in 2020. It still remains around that level so it's possible covid lockdown created some new turkey hunters.
I hunted the black hills during the lockdown. I can't speak for SD because I tagged out after only being there for 2 hours. But Wyoming was overran with hunters. Every where you could put a tent. There seemed to be a tent.
So you may be on to something.
I did not see a large increase in numbers on private around me. I do not hunt the big pieces that tons of people hunt anyways. The numbers speak for themselves on kills during Covid. I do not mind that TN cut back to 2 birds, they should have when they cut back to 3. I will miss hunting late March and early April I really enjoyed youth season lined up with my kids Spring break. I hope it accomplishes what they want it to and numbers increase, time will tell.
My point is the Covid Lock down year shouldn't have been used in the deciding factory of the numbers game / kills with States. Regarding Openers. That was an unprecedented year... as for rolling the season back 2 weeks and decreasing the bag limited 2 birds, you could have done this by decreasing your kill numbers yourself. I usually killed in my area what i felt was reasonable, maybe 1 / 2 to help in sustaining the gobblers for years to come.. The wildlife people give you the tools and bag limited, but my suggestion is manage you hunting ground. Not just because that gave you a number / limit... YOUR the manager of yourself and your kills .. IMO
Quote from: Greg Massey on February 27, 2023, 11:16:31 AM
My point is the Covid Lock down year shouldn't have been used in the deciding factory of the numbers game / kills with States. Regarding Openers. That was an unprecedented year... as for rolling the season back 2 weeks and decreasing the bag limited 2 birds, you could have done this by decreasing your kill numbers yourself. I usually killed in my area what i felt was reasonable, maybe 1 / 2 to help in sustaining the gobblers for years to come.. The wildlife people give you the tools and bag limited, but my suggestion is manage you hunting ground. Not just because that gave you a number / limit... YOUR the manager of yourself and your kills .. IMO
That would require self-control. That's not something Americans-especially the last few generations are particularly good about.
I don't disagree with your point, I just think it's a pipe-dream.
Quote from: CALLM2U on February 27, 2023, 11:43:21 AM
Quote from: Greg Massey on February 27, 2023, 11:16:31 AM
My point is the Covid Lock down year shouldn't have been used in the deciding factory of the numbers game / kills with States. Regarding Openers. That was an unprecedented year... as for rolling the season back 2 weeks and decreasing the bag limited 2 birds, you could have done this by decreasing your kill numbers yourself. I usually killed in my area what i felt was reasonable, maybe 1 / 2 to help in sustaining the gobblers for years to come.. The wildlife people give you the tools and bag limited, but my suggestion is manage you hunting ground. Not just because that gave you a number / limit... YOUR the manager of yourself and your kills .. IMO
That would require self-control. That's not something Americans-especially the last few generations are particularly good about.
I don't disagree with your point, I just think it's a pipe-dream.
Agree, but more and more areas / farmland is least hunting ground this day and time ... self-control can be put in place by the group... But I agree i see your point also...
Quote from: Greg Massey on February 27, 2023, 11:16:31 AM
My point is the Covid Lock down year shouldn't have been used in the deciding factory of the numbers game / kills with States. Regarding Openers. That was an unprecedented year... as for rolling the season back 2 weeks and decreasing the bag limited 2 birds, you could have done this by decreasing your kill numbers yourself. I usually killed in my area what i felt was reasonable, maybe 1 / 2 to help in sustaining the gobblers for years to come.. The wildlife people give you the tools and bag limited, but my suggestion is manage you hunting ground. Not just because that gave you a number / limit... YOUR the manager of yourself and your kills .. IMO
Gary I did the same things on the ground I hunt when there were actually turkeys there to hunt that's another story. HOWEVER very few people will do that and there is no way to know when your hunting public ground how many are there and how many have been killed. If you tell people to monitor and only kill a percentage of their birds they will say the state set the limit at 3 for a reason. I actually had a good friend who I would have thought better of than this, but last year between youth week and opening weekend they killed ALL 5 gobblers that they knew about on the farm they hunt. I was like really man, he just shrugged his shoulders and said eventually some will move back in.
To answer your original question. Yes covid year was bad with new people taking up hunting because they had time. That also means that some percentage of them continued to hunt because they enjoyed it, they didn't quit the next year so they continue to be a factor in the harvest.
The biggest thing I see is EVERYBODY is traveling now. I've been traveling and hunting for about 20 years and there have always been a few people that did. The last few years it seems everyone is doing the Super Slam and the ones who aren't are just trying to be Dave Owens or The Hunting Public, etc. There are people everywhere now days.
It used to be tough to find where to go and how to go about doing it. Now days with mapping software that shows where every 5 acre public piece is located and thousands of U tube vidoes to go watch, every 18 yr has someone telling him just go and telling him how to do it.
I know it was really crowded that year and since then. I would think most of the guys aren't really going to kill many turkeys but some of the numbers of turkey harvest reported is scary. I think some WMA's had double and triple numbers compared to before.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Great thread Greg. In NJ, our Turkey harvests were actually down in 2021, 2022 approximately 18% from 2020. There was only a ten bird difference between 2021 and 2022. The numbers are dramatic decreases, the trend is starting to look dismal. The state did not change anything regarding the seasons and bag limits. Unfortunately, the permit dollars seem to be taking precedent here. This season will be a real tell tail sign on this trend, hopefully it does not continue its slide downward. I spend numerous hours afield each year, I have witnessed this down trend first hand......
Around here, Covid definitely put more people in the woods (national forest), but it was difficult to tell how many were turkey hunters,...lots of campers, ATV riders, etc. running around.
Spring gobbler hunting pressure here is increasing,...as is the impact on the turkey population,...but I believe that is more due to more and more people that never turkey hunted becoming aware of the thrill of spring hunting. It is also a function of almost all of our other species of big game going to drawings, resulting in more and more folks looking for alternatives for their hunting.
Turkeys are lumped in with big game here and are about the last remaining species that has OTC hunting opportunity. We are seeing more and more hunters that never hunted turkeys try it, see how much fun it is, and become turkey hunters. Then they tell their non-turkey-hunting buddies about it,...and so forth,...until we have ended up where we are now.
That is, more turkey hunters filling the woods,...more gobblers being taken out of the population,...which results in more pressure on the remaining birds and with more hunters concentrating on those birds,...and so on. It is a vicious cycle that looks like it will not change,...unless wildlife managers decide to address this situation by implementing more and more restrictions,...and that is exactly what is happening around the country, and will very likely continue.
Locally i saw an increase. Had to literally zigzag around pup tents and decoys 2020 and since.
The point about self regulation is a good one. Unfortunately, the majority of people i bump into don't possess that discipline.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It put a lot of people in the woods in their local area, but not many travelled. I know it put a lot of people on the local lake. I guess it was a push at worst, more likely it helped the turkeys overall as fewer people travelled to hunt. Where I hunt, it didn't change much at all. The folks who lease the land either live local or had a camp, so nothing changed on my home turf.
Didn't see much in the way of change when it came to the amount of people in the woods. The change I saw was more birds on the private land I hunt in Mo. They didn't allow hunting during Covid, which of course lent itself to more birds. Only good thing to come from Covid. Only problem is..... I can't hear them gobble with their masks on. LOL
We had a bumper crop of 2 year olds , this caused a lot of the new hunters to think they where " easy ".
This added much pressure ever since .
The WMAs got a little more traffic but total harvests didn't increase exponentially. Honestly other than schools going remote and restaurants closing most people just kind of kept living their lives here. Some places required masks and others didn't. I'd say the split between wearing masks and not was around 50/50
In my area of MS during Covid the folks "working from home" must have been working in the turkey woods because in the middle of work week when I usually wouldn't see many trucks before work the woods were full of people. I was still going to office, as I never stopped going and never worked remote. But to answer question, yes. Lots more folks in the woods "working."
Saw a lot more kids in the woods, high school and college during the week. A few of them had no clue to ethics and would do questionable things, but most were raised right and were fine. Lots of area to spread out where I hunt and so I just hunted the out of the way birds. Did a lot more hunting by boat that year.
Draw hunts were different. Folks were not traveling so the local place we were drawn for was darn near empty. It was awesome.
Definitely had more "quarantined" hunters in the woods in my area. Couple that with Youth week coinciding with Easter vacation week from school and the numbers soared. Riding around now and Gobblers blowed up and advertising already.
Lot more people on the trails that I frequent and more people than normal on public the one day I hunted it for turkey and each day I bow hunted it for deer. NY by the way.
I'm in Tennessee also. I hunted Tennessee and Alabama extensively in 2020. Saw more hunters than I had in previous years. So, yes, I also saw an increase in a different part of the state (hunter middle to east TN in 2020.) The number of hunters may have dropped a bit in the couple of seasons since then, but not much.
In Alabama, there were more hunters than I accustomed to (I hunt both states every year.) I didn't notice the boon in Alabama that I did in Tennessee overall, but I definitely did on a couple of WMAs. I think YT may have had something to do with one of those, though. More hunters, but where I hunt in Alabama it has stayed close to consistent. There were lots of dedicated turkey hunters in Alabama already.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Oh yeah! Up here in New York State on Public Land there has been a big increase of Hunters since 2020 and the Chinese Virus. I see has to be younger guys sprinting on Field edges.
In New Jersey it definitely is more Crowded. Not many Turkeys up in Zones 5,6,7, etc- but New people are definitely out.
Indeed it did. There was a huge influx of hunters every where I went. Even had a vehicle from New York state start parking by me.
This will be our 5th season tagging turkeys in mississippi. The reported numbers have gone down every year. Last season was a very very slight decline in harvest report but still down. Even the covid year went down not up. All other statistics have gone up since covid...the only thing that went down was harvest. Maybe this year will be different. While i have limited out many times, i no longer really care much about it. One is enough, and even when i did/or do limit out ive never made an attempt to do it in one spot or property not even on private. My dad is getting old, if I manage to get a bird and have time before traveling, my time will be set aside to help him. We have come close many times, but ive yet to call him up a bird and him shoot it. sort of a bucket list item for me before he gets too old
2020 was a tough year with a lot of people out. In fact, it was the the first time I actually ran into another hunter in the woods while spring turkey hunting. Hell I caught a game warden hunting on the job that year. He smoked a huge gobbler and I met him at the trailhead. He just laughed about it. 2021 and 2022 were better for sure, slow decline in pressure.
Just had this conversation with my hunting buddy yesterday as we are looking forward to this season. 2020 was crazy busy as others have observed. Seems like that was true about everywhere. Last year was not as busy and the bird population seems fine today.