I am hunting a ranch (450 acres) that typically has 3-4 toms on it (never seen a jake in the last 3 years). Been very dry the last 2 years, and I until recently I have not had success on this ranch.
This year, I believe there are 4 toms on the property this year... I killed one, and have a second one well-patterned. I am hesitant to kill another bird (taking 50% of the toms) as I do not want to reduce my own resource, and also afraid of moving birds off the property and preventing breeding there.
What say the brain trust in how many birds you will take off a given property (I am the only one supposed to be hunting there).
all depends on your hatches. Taking gobblers shouldn't ruin your hunting like taking mature bucks doesnt harm deer but that's also assuming they are making more. if there are 4 toms and good number of hens around, then you should be making birds...but if you have crappy hatch weather, too many predators like raccoons opossum skunks and coyotes bobcats then you might not be really recruiting them. In MO where we have plenty of turkeys a bunch of areas I know and hunt had the population drop to near zero in 2010 and 2011. This was due to predation and 3 years of terrible hatch weather, April snow and Ice and super wet springs from 2007 through 2010. We had gobblers around during that time but no production at least not much. Used to have 75 turkeys on this property regularly (too many) and then it crashed. It took 3 years to get back to where there were any birds around. We have enough that we've taken 2 gobblers off that farm each of the last few years and seem to be growing again. Trap raccoons, and bobcats, shoot coyotes, and most importantly do all you can for your habitat to allow good nesting. This includes not mowing any grassy or weedy areas until after July 15....good luck
I hunt public that is said to have about 200 birds. So 30 birds per 1000acres of good habit. Every spring 50 to 60 gobblers get killed on this ground. I also have a buddy that always says," For every 2 birds you hear gobble,one doesn't." But I assume you are counting and not just listening. Plus factor in that the birds will come and go. Hope this is helping.
it really depends on the overall population in the area, hen population, and how desirable the place is to attract new birds.
I can think of a few places that I hunt that we don't worry about it at all because its desirable enough other toms move in after a dominant bird dies. A specific place (150 acres) with lots of nesting, good fields, great roost trees tons of hens and protective no hunting land near by (golf course). We shot 5-6 Toms off that property last year there was never more than 2 or 3 on a specific day but each time we killed one another bird from the area would take his place in just a few days. This year there are several nice birds again using the farm.
I can also think of other places that I know would not be the same and we try and limit the amount of birds we take.
It wont hurt you at all to kill a second bird.
I agree with Taunto.
What do the neighboring properties hold? You may want to hesitate if you own the only timbered property within miles.
Harvesting mature males that typically dominate an area will bring in subordinates from other areas to take over. Bucks often do the same thing. You are safe harvesting toms so long as you see hens and have a desirable breeding/hatching habitat.
I hunt a 350 acre piece that has cattle fields on both sides of a mature large creek bottom. Mix of mature pine and some younger growth. I have harvested 1-3 birds from it for the last 10 plus years. Last year was the first year I did not kill a bird, but they logged a large section and were just finishing as turkey season started. They logged right down to the roost area and probably ran them off. I have already killed one there this year.
I don't believe that it would hurt you to kill all the mature toms you can kill in a year on a property.. 2 years past hatch has more to do with population than anything.. letting a Tom get a year older will only make them harder to kill in my opinion.. plus there is no guarantee a predator or something else will keep him from seeing another spring..
As far as breeding hens.. if you kill all the toms on a place before all the hens are bred (which is probably not going to happen, as most states set their seasons after peak breeding is done).. the hens will go find another one to breed them I promise you that and they will come back and nest on their home turf.. if they can't find a tom they will breed with a Jake..
The only male birds I don't kill are Jakes .. just because I love to hear a loudmouth 2 year old.. so the more jakes I give a pass the more chance of that happening the following year..
one property we hunt is about 300 acres. The first year we had it we had 5 gobblers and killed all 5. The next year we killed 3 and 1 got away. This year we have 5 more. You should be fine
I'd never advise anyone to kill all the jakes they can but hammer away on the Toms if the local Population is doing well.
One thing you will notice is after several years of shooting them up they do tend to fill and and replace through maturing of jakes but you might not see tons of big long spurred birds as you aren't letting them age before killing but who cares.
I'd be leery of killing more than one or two if I had only seen 4 toms on 450 acre. I can hunt several hundred acres here that had well over a dozen toms seen, just a rough guesstimate. And a group of 12 jakes. The hatch was also very good last year so things are looking fine. We did kill a good handful of gobblers last year as well, but I don't think it hurt the population at all.
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Kill all the gobblers you want. If the gobblers are there then there is obviously hens there. And when gobblers and hens get together it makes baby turkeys! These babies will take the place of the toms your killing and then some. And if there are longbeards there then there are jakes there somewhere. As soon as a male turkey breeds a hen he is not doing anything for the population for another year.
I asked a biologist the same question and he said kill all the toms you want just not jakes
Take what long beards you want to eat and leave the rest including the Jakes
If I only have 4 toms I'm only shooting 1. Save them fir next year, especially if your not seeing any jakes. The only time I'm shooting more than one bird is if there 5+ toms with a good jake population. The last thing you want is to mess up next season.
If the habitat is good and there is successful reproduction going on in the long run, killing another bird or two probably will have no long-term impact in your hunting. If there has been no successful hatch in the last couple of years, however, and you truly do not think there are any jakes in the area, then killing the remaining mature birds this year may result in a negative impact in your hunting there until you do have a successful hatch or two.
If it was me, I think I would be willing to shoot no more than one additional gobbler on that property, and then be looking for another place to finish off my limit. There is no rule that says a guy is less of a turkey hunter if he chooses not to shoot every gobbler he can somewhere.
Quote from: Greg Massey on March 30, 2016, 07:07:14 PM
Take what long beards you want to eat and leave the rest including the Jakes
This is my third year hunting the property... (I also hunt it for quail and waterfowl). I have seen groups up to 20 birds in the fall (mostly hens). I have yet to see a jake on the property...
Last winter while duck hunting, I did see a group of 4 toms as well while driving out.
Talking to a guy that leases and runs cattle, he has seen about 4 toms on the property (before the season), and from the gobbling and what I have seen, that is what I would guess as well...
Never seen better California habitat for turkeys. Multiple ponds, plenty of feed (including for the cattle), great roosts... I would expect to see far more birds on this property than I am... Still lucky to have it, and would hate to hurt future prospects...
Quail hatches have been absolutely miserable (everywhere), and with the drought, I would guess the turkeys have been struggling as well. Driving around the area, there are usually "house turkeys" congregated in certain small residential areas, and I have seen none. This is the fewest turkeys I have ever seen in the general area.
I guess a lot will have to do with what your local turkey population is and how your spring nesting season goes. We never even think about it... I have a property we hunt and the landowner always gives us the "Shoot everyone one of them" deal. So he has 250 acres of what I would call prime turkey ground. We will kill 5-7 gobblers there every year and make no difference in reproduction. I have a few properties like this and see the same results on all of them, makes no difference how many toms we take... In a good area, good weather and accounting for predators and everything a flock of turkeys can double there population yearly biologically speaking.
MK M GOBL
I'm lucky in that there are 7-8 places locally that I can hunt. If I take a gobbler from one spot, that location is done for my remaining two tags. By not taking more than one gobbler from an area as well as not shooting jakes, a location can produce gobblers for many years not considering other hunters and/or predation.
Quote from: TRG3 on March 31, 2016, 01:06:27 AM
I'm lucky in that there are 7-8 places locally that I can hunt. If I take a gobbler from one spot, that location is done for my remaining two tags. By not taking more than one gobbler from an area as well as not shooting jakes, a location can produce gobblers for many years not considering other hunters and/or predation.
That's the way I tend to look at it. I hunt a piece of private land here by the house that's about the size you're talking about Marc. There are five or six other hunters with permission to hunt it each year and several more that aren't suppose to be there on any given day. I don't know how many birds the other guys kill, along with the guys riding up and down the road every morning trying to pop one in a field from their vehicles. Even on banner years, When I shoot a bird I'm done there and move to another spot. Probably on any but poor years, killing another mature bird wouldn't make any difference, It's just something I choose to do.
Bob
6 years ago I got permission to hunt a piece of property. We heard 1 gobble and were able to kill him. For the next 3 years we saw and heard nothing. We started feeding them during the off season. In 2013 we took 1 bird out of 3 long beards. No jakes could be killed. The next year there were 5 and 3 jakes we took 2 birds. Last year there were 7 with 5 jakes and we took 3...this year we've spotted 10 long beards and 5 jakes. I am a big supporter of protecting your future when it comes to hunting so we stay at a 50% or slightly less. It works!
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I agree with killing toms and leaving jakes. It's kinda like putting a green tomato on a sandwich.
i'd take as many as i can on a property...I am allowed 2 per season and I will try my best to get that two no matter what property they come from.