OldGobbler

OG Gear Store
Sum Toy
Dave Smith
Wood Haven
North Mountain Gear
North Mountain Gear
turkeys for tomorrow

News:

only use regular PayPal to provide purchase protection

Main Menu

Not a gobble heard.

Started by owlhoot, May 17, 2021, 04:49:37 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

owlhoot

Hunted a few long days on my place in Northern Missouri. Not a gobble , not one.
Finally saw an old hen out there, didn't seem to have a nest as she traveled some distance. no tom around.
In the last 3 years there I've taken 4 off the place. Lots of river bottom by me. Had a few jakes around last year I left alone. Had at least 6 hens I saw. Shot a 21lb 2 year old. Not near as nice as the long-spurred 25-27 lb birds I shot previously.
Not looking good now. Turkey there don't seem to replace themselves anymore.
As usual seen more coons than turkey everywhere.
Luckily had some more ground to hunt to get it done.
A few good hatches would sure be nice. Some season changes?

vt35mag

Quote from: owlhoot on May 17, 2021, 04:49:37 PM
As usual seen more coons than turkey everywhere.

There's part of, if not most of your problem.

Sanders153

I experienced the same with my Oklahoma season. Did not hear one gobble and only saw two hens

RutnNStrutn

Sounds like you need to kill some nest raiders.

Sent from deep in the woods where the critters roam.


Yoteduster

I think I'd start my own predator control program on those areas

High plains drifter

I called in this mean looking racoon the other morning. I guess I should have  shot him. I don't like killing anything but birds.

lowoctane

 :morning:
I hunt a farm close to Vandalia MO and our gobblers started early and ended pretty much as the season started... :camohat:
I'm Old School...
GOD, GUTS AND GUNS
MADE AMERICA GREAT,
LET'S KEEP ALL THREE!
NRA Endowment
NAHC Life

Muzzy61

Quote from: RutnNStrutn on May 17, 2021, 11:03:14 PM
Sounds like you need to kill some nest raiders.

Sent from deep in the woods where the critters roam.

We have 2 guys that we let coon hunt our property just for this reason.
Print by Madison Cline, on Flickr

Neill_Prater

This was the first time in at least 20 years here in Missouri that I have failed to fill both tags, and only the second time since I killed my first bird in 1979 that I failed to kill at least one. That was back in the early 90's as I recall, and I had the opportunity, but missed.

To be fair, I should have killed a bird the first week on my main hunting property, but set up in a "safe" spot instead of pushing the envelope, but it would have been more of an ambush situation. After the 3rd day of the season, I never saw or heard another gobbler on the property. My other go to place, I found a single set of hen tracks and that was it.

Admittedly, I was nursing a back injury, so didn't cover ground like I would have in the same situation years ago, but I still hunted hard and on multiple properties both public and private and only failed to be in the woods two mornings due to the weather.

In total, I heard at the most maybe 10 different gobblers, including those I heard on land I couldn't hunt, and not a single one really responded to calls. Back in the day, it would not have been unusual to hear that many birds in a single morning.

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk


stinkpickle

The farms I hunted in northern Missouri yo-yo'ed a lot this year.  One farm was packed with birds during youth season, but they all packed up and left by opening day of regular season.  Another farm was empty until the last two days of the season. 

catdaddy

It was a unusual and tuff season for me. I hunted 12 days, north, middle and south Mississippi, then drove 12 hours one way to Texas----and never heard a gobble. On the 13th morning back in N MS I finally got on some gobbling birds to the east of my set up. Perhaps not so ironically, I killed a gobbler that morning that came in from the west--he never gobbled once.

Sir-diealot

Just started hearing them Thurs.-Sat. but had to take a break from hunting and also working on some calls. I am hoping with the property having nobody on it that things will have improved over the last few days.
Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. Arnold Schwarzenegger

John Koenig:
"It's better to live as your own man, than as a fool in someone else's dream."

bonasa

If I had to rate the weeks in NY it would be Week 4 (100%), Week 1 (74%), Week 3 (71%) and Week 2 (42%) success based on (harvest: days hunted) . During the last week, every single bird that has answered our calls has come in and we have achieved 100% success during the final days of our season. 

As to the OP's situation, who knows. Predators can be an issue but weather during winter/spring plays a bigger role IMO. In your situation the neighbors could have logged the roost trees, food plot installation, crop rotation of what was fallow is now disced, they could be baiting, neighbor kids incessantly riding new dirt-bikes, neighbors got a new dog that roams, a myriad of reasons, sneaky-pete poaching prior to season, poaching around the corn cribs during winter or any other reasons.

Have you any other areas? We routinely hunt around 12 farms, some are GREAT for a few years then dead for a few years; for one, some or all the reasons listed above. With that being said, there is always a farm that has more strutters than hens that are eager to play the game. Good luck

Kansan

Unfortunately, that's the new normal in much of the turkey's range.

owlhoot

Quote from: RutnNStrutn on May 17, 2021, 11:03:14 PM
Sounds like you need to kill some nest raiders.

Sent from deep in the woods where the critters roam.

That would be great if I could . Did take out a coyote deer season.