I starting hunting Turkey in the early 80's. The game was relatively new, no commercial camo, no TSS, fixed chokes, you get the picture. Late 80's, through the 90's, birds were plentiful. Mess up on one, walk a few hundred yards, strike up another. Fast forward to today, it's tough all over. I am not getting into why, lord knows all the threads lately are trying to determine this. I am by no means an expert Turkey hunter, in fact I will never be. One thing I can be sure of is I enjoy everything about it, including this great Forum. I have decided to accept the fact that this sport is now a real battle with not only nature and a diminishing resource, but a competition between all of us in sharing the woods we chose to do battle in. It's like "survival of the fittest", the weak will give up, the strong will chose to stay in the game and adapt. I confess that the birds are much tougher to harvest, but I am ok with this. It's what it is. Harvesting a mature Tom now to me is way more rewarding than it was 20 years ago. I have become very humble now regarding Turkey hunting. We all have now joined, but in my opinion taken a back seat in the predator chain of the Wild Turkey, in fact we are ALL competing for this precious resource. Couple this with everything else we see in our threads, times have changed. I have accepted this, and will "motor on" with my favorite passion. Just thought I'd share my views here. Be safe, enjoy your season!
Everything changes. We as humans choose to either adapt and conserve or adapt and exploit. History is full of examples of exploitation. Wooly mammoth and passages pigeon come to mind. We have to accept that there are more turkey hunters than before so in order to have more turkeys we have to look for ways to bring about a population increase instead of decline. I know that here we've been trapping and shooting varmints hard and it seems to be working. Turkeys do well in open woods so prescribed fire is another tool we like to use.
Agree, times have changed , and during these changing times i made some great memories with friends while chasing gobblers ... It's all about adapting and learning new and better strategies while hunting. Some days we are successful and some days it just doesn't work out but i still enjoy the time outdoors ...
Great post here- yes it's tougher in my book as well now but if I had to quit all hunting except for one thing it would be turkeys! I enjoy the challenge and interaction and the spring woods - have many memorable hunts with great friends- I plan to continue on!! Good luck out there and be respectful and courteous in the woods!!
Quote from: Tom007 on March 03, 2023, 11:41:41 AM
I starting hunting Turkey in the early 80's. The game was relatively new, no commercial camo, no TSS, fixed chokes, you get the picture. Late 80's, through the 90's, birds were plentiful. Mess up on one, walk a few hundred yards, strike up another. Fast forward to today, it's tough all over. I am not getting into why, lord knows all the threads lately are trying to determine this. I am by no means an expert Turkey hunter, in fact I will never be. One thing I can be sure of is I enjoy everything about it, including this great Forum. I have decided to accept the fact that this sport is now a real battle with not only nature and a diminishing resource, but a competition between all of us in sharing the woods we chose to do battle in. It's like "survival of the fittest", the weak will give up, the strong will chose to stay in the game and adapt. I confess that the birds are much tougher to harvest, but I am ok with this. It's what it is. Harvesting a mature Tom now to me is way more rewarding than it was 20 years ago. I have become very humble now regarding Turkey hunting. We all have now joined, but in my opinion taken a back seat in the predator chain of the Wild Turkey, in fact we are ALL competing for this precious resource. Couple this with everything else we see in our threads, times have changed. I have accepted this, and will "motor on" with my favorite passion. Just thought I'd share my views here. Be safe, enjoy your season!
x2. Your story mimics my own hunting journey chasing the big birds. Great post!
Appreciate the kind words friends.....
When I was a kid I'd grab the 'ol Model 12 with some high brass #6's and hit the woods without patterning, cleaning the barrel or any sort of optic-just bare bones. These days my guns are synthetic, have optics on them and are loaded with TSS. I could go back to the bare essentials at any point but what I miss most is the exclusivity. That's one thing you can't get back...
Right 007. Alot of competition for a limited Resource in North New Jersey.
I started out in 1990. 1994 was my 1st year hunting in New Jersey. I remember that the projected number of Turkeys in 1994 was 22,000. Today nearly 30 years later the numbers are 20,000 to 23,000.
Not much of a change??.
I started turkey hunting in the mid 1970's, early days of Michigan turkey hunting. Great memories but today's hunting opportunities are far greater than my early experience. It was tough back then.
How many more hunters are now chasing these birds vs 30 years ago.... ??
Quote from: quavers59 on March 03, 2023, 01:44:11 PM
Right 007. Alot of competition for a limited Resource in North New Jersey.
I started out in 1990. 1994 was my 1st year hunting in New Jersey. I remember that the projected number of Turkeys in 1994 was 22,000. Today nearly 30 years later the numbers are 20,000 to 23,000.
Not much of a change??.
We encourage, take a youngster hunting. Now we got what we wanted. More hunters and with that goes less hunting ground, over populated public ground. These youngsters do it different with videos, and tech savvy info. We didn't have that back then. It's like comparing Jack to Tiger. As Gooserbat said. we can either change and adapt or wallow in our pity. We don't have to change everything, just adapt some.
Quote from: jhoward11 on March 03, 2023, 03:02:25 PM
We encourage, take a youngster hunting. Now we got what we wanted. More hunters and with that goes less hunting ground, over populated public ground. These youngsters do it different with videos, and tech savvy info. We didn't have that back then. It's like comparing Jack to Tiger. As Gooserbat said. we can either change and adapt or wallow in our pity. We don't have to change everything, just adapt some.
Well said. I bet that a lot of the folks that complain about YT and such would have also done the same thing if it was available back in the day. I started in the late 80's and it was too cumbersome to carry around a vhs recorder while hunting. With today's technology, who knows if I would have gotten into the filming scene, but I bet a lot of people that discourage it now would have.
Kinda hard to fathom.........
I don't THINK of myself as being "old". But I definitely DID get into turkey hunting in this area on the ground floor.
When I started hunting, there were no turkeys where I lived. You had to travel to bigger woods to find them. We used to drive close to 100 miles to an area in the vicinity of Penn State University to hunt spring birds.
ALSO, when I started.......a whole lot of things hunters today take for granted did not even exist. Things like:
Realtree
Mossy Oak
Primos
Cody
shotgun shells designated "Turkey"
shotgun chokes designated "Turkey"
turkey decoys
Crazy how the sport has "evolved" in such a short span of time.
Just my two cents. I started hunting turkeys in the late 80's and enjoyed seeing the birds take hold and expand the size of the flocks. At one time it was like there was a bird behind every tree to gobble at my calls no matter how bad I sounded and yes now the numbers are down in certain areas that I hunt. In the end I'm getting older but nowhere near out of the game. At 62 I've kept myself in shape and still love every day I can get out in the woods and if I'm lucky work some birds. I agree that it's frustrating on the days when the woods are way to quiet. Someday this will end as the mind may be willing, but the body says no or any other combination of things. When it's said and done, I'll still get up at 3 am and head out to woods hoping this is the day that he wants to play for a while and if not it's still the best time of the year to be out in the woods and I don't want to miss it. Maybe if there's nothing happening, I'll find some mushrooms or pick a few Ramps to cook up for dinner and I've been known to dig up ferns or flowers to put in my garden at home. But I'm out there any enjoying every minute of it and wouldn't have it any other way for as long as it will last.
Quote from: callmakerman on March 03, 2023, 03:10:42 PM
Just my two cents. I started hunting turkeys in the late 80's and enjoyed seeing the birds take hold and expand the size of the flocks. At one time it was like there was a bird behind every tree to gobble at my calls no matter how bad I sounded and yes now the numbers are down in certain areas that I hunt. In the end I'm getting older but nowhere near out of the game. At 62 I've kept myself in shape and still love every day I can get out in the woods and if I'm lucky work some birds. I agree that it's frustrating on the days when the woods are way to quiet. Someday this will end as the mind may be willing, but the body says no or any other combination of things. When it's said and done, I'll still get up at 3 am and head out to woods hoping this is the day that he wants to play for a while and if not it's still the best time of the year to be out in the woods and I don't want to miss it. Maybe if there's nothing happening, I'll find some mushrooms or pick a few Ramps to cook up for dinner and I've been known to dig up ferns or flowers to put in my garden at home. But I'm out there any enjoying every minute of it and wouldn't have it any other way for as long as it will last.
Great post... I agree and those sunrises are some of the best you will ever see and if your fortunate a gobble in the distance.
Turkeys are still turkeys and they will always have similar habits and quirks. They are being hunted differently now with technology and the current public land craze. Seasons are changing, start dates are changing. Bag limits are changing. But turkeys are still turkeys.
Reminds me of elk hunting in Colorado a couple of years ago. My first elk hunt and DIY. It was a week long parade of hunters waaay up in the mountains. Some old timers I ran into said..." You should have been here in the old days before You Tube and beetle kill." The elk hunting may never be the same just because of beetle kill. If the current downward spiral of the turkey is biological, turkey hunting may never be the same. Both are mournful for the old timers and I feel ya bro. Very sad, but not completely devastating. The old timers in Co. still knew how to get it done on elk and they had a blast trying. A few of the guys I met there had fun trying to help me and also had their own success. Never met a better bunch of men. Tom, you would fit right in. You can cry in your beer a bit but then you need to get your calls and your gun and get after it while the glass is still half full.
I can remember around our area of the farm, we had people who had cows and farm the land with row cropping. Most all of this has gone by the way side.. Most of these hard working farmers are no longer around. Fields are all grown up with vegetation, timber has been cut and the habitat has all changed. Do any of you realize how much it cost to just put in food plots on your hunting ground? Several dollars which include tractor / equipment, fuel, seed and fertilizer. So all of this has changed the overall turkey population alone with habitat and predators. Some are more fortunate than others because habitat hasn't suffered as drastic of a hit from non-farming practice. No one traps or hunts predators to speak of and so the life cycle of the plentiful days of lots of turkeys are no more in my area. I do feel we will always have some to hunt, but again i always have HOPE this will continue on our farm because of maintaining the farm and planting food plots..
good read. I know I've mentioned it on here before...my first spring gobbler hunt was in the 70's and DANG have things changed since. I'd like to say for the better but things were so much simpler back then. I think the fewer choices you have the better off you are. Now there's hundreds of shotgun options, hundreds of ammo options, thousands of call options not to mention decoys and all the fancy camo. If the old guys I hunted with when I was a kid could see things now the would laugh till they were blue in the face.
Quote from: Brillo on March 03, 2023, 03:48:46 PM
Reminds me of elk hunting in Colorado a couple of years ago. My first elk hunt and DIY. It was a week long parade of hunters waaay up in the mountains. Some old timers I ran into said..." You should have been here in the old days before You Tube and beetle kill." The elk hunting may never be the same just because of beetle kill. If the current downward spiral of the turkey is biological, turkey hunting may never be the same. Both are mournful for the old timers and I feel ya bro. Very sad, but not completely devastating. The old timers in Co. still knew how to get it done on elk and they had a blast trying. A few of the guys I met there had fun trying to help me and also had their own success. Never met a better bunch of men. Tom, you would fit right in. You can cry in your beer a bit but then you need to get your calls and your gun and get after it while the glass is still half full.
The same is happening with Elk in Colorado. I saw it first hand. Colorado is addressing Elk license/permit availability by adjusting same. How ironic are the similarities to Elk and Turkey hunting. We can all just do what we can to help out. Take an ethical approach with everything you do in the woods, support the right organizations that will further our causes, and hope nature does their part. It is a lot to ask, but realize we are protecting more than a lot here.....thank you all for the great input!
I started in the mid 60's as a kid of two hard core turkey hunters. I tell you what I miss most of all. Sitting around an open campfire with my parents and usually another die hard turkey hunter as gator tail, swamp cabbage and usually grits were being prepared. And more times than not the local WMA game warden Glenn Ivey would stop by and hang out. They even named a trail after him after his passing. I'd sit around for hours playing in the fire and listening to those old stories (probably enhanced versions). All while listening to the airboats in the distance on Kissimmee. I'd give anything to go back to one of those weekends of the 60's and 70's. I'd gladly leave my gun and modern equipment in 2023 just to get a chance to relive of few days of that era again.
In 50yrs these will be the good old days and old men, like some of us here, will yearn for them.
Hat's off to all of those doing this since pretty much the beginning of the restoration or hunted the truly wild birds. I've only been at this for a few decades so I haven't seen the waves of change you all know so well. Just in the time since I started there has been an unfortunate downturn. Hope we turn it around so someday I can show my kids the good old days and not just tell them stories about days gone.
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Funny because the places I hunt and have for the last 30 years have substantially less turkey hunters.
If I did not read on here how many new hunters there are I would never believe it. There are equally less Turkeys
I can go a week without even hearing a bird now.I have my beliefs as to why but thats not the point.
It's changed, no doubts about that. But we still go, hoping for those precious few magic turkey mornings where it all comes together. For some lucky guys, it happens more than others, but we all have to go.
Quote from: Tail Feathers on March 03, 2023, 08:23:53 PM
It's changed, no doubts about that. But we still go, hoping for those precious few magic turkey mornings where it all comes together. For some lucky guys, it happens more than others, but we all have to go.
Amen to all for this!
To the OP:
Don't know why, but I just seen this "Not the first time" it struck me as funny, this time.
Our days gone bye, be it the 70's, 80's, or 90's was never seen by a lot of these guys. So today is their best memory of what it could be. Hopefully, it gets better for them.
New to Turkey but have been hunting and fishing since the 1970's. I've always tried to keep a "young mind" but have a few good memories of the old days, and knowing they are never coming back does get depressing sometimes.
I grew up on Eastern Long Island, back when it was largely a sleepy suburb and farming community. We used to grab some beers and head out to Montauk or other jetties and fish for Striped Bass all night. The Stripers were plentiful and the shore largely empty. We knew all the night shift cops, and because we were clean and respectful, they either left us alone or sometimes hung out with us. Now anywhere you go out there is either private property or shoulder to shoulder internet warriors with $2,000 rod reel combos and GoPros. Police are all over. Loudness and fights are common, and you literally could not pay me to go out there anymore.
Same with deer hunting. We would hop in my buddy's truck and just drive half the night into rural upstate NY. Then find a dirt road to drive down, pitch a tent and hunt. Again, always respectful of Posted areas, and clean and respectful of any property.
You just can't do that anymore. It seems like everything is a landmine of property rights, and I need to have my nose in OnX Hunt to make sure I don't step out of line.
I actually became a more successful deer hunter as I got older, but I sure remember it being a lot more fun back in the day.....
I don't have a frame of reference for how things were as we didn't have turkeys where I grew up. I didn't start turkey hunting until later in life once the turkeys were reintroduced. I'm lucky to have access to a lot of private land to hunt that holds plenty of turkeys. Typically I latch on quickly to new hunting equipment, some of it helps me and some of it doesn't. My style of hunting changes from year to year and from situation to situation. Some of the old timers I talk to around here say the turkeys have changed behaviors since they were reintroduced. So the more experienced hunters have had to change tactics.
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Great thread and I appreciate all of you sharing your view points with the rest of us! I am always interested to hear it from so many different perspectives. Just another reason a place like this is such a great one to be a part of!
Quote from: MNGobbler on March 08, 2023, 04:21:57 PM
Great thread and I appreciate all of you sharing your view points with the rest of us! I am always interested to hear it from so many different perspectives. Just another reason a place like this is such a great one to be a part of!
Amen to all, thanks for the great responses from everyone......