Success rate?

[Spring_Woods]

I noticed the success rate in Ohio was 22%. That seems low!!

What is it in your state?

[turkey_slayer]

That's prob about right. It's about the same for bowhunters deer hunting as well. You see a lot of dead birds posted on here but I bet you would be surprised the number of people that take a couple of years to harvest one and few rarely tag out.

[Spring_Woods]

Yeah I guess I don't really care about tagging out as much as I'd just like to get one. It makes me wonder; is the 22% compromised of hunters that just tag out, or is it just relative to the number of tags sold vs. # of birds killed?

Also, a lot of people hunt on landowners tags. How do they account for them?

[turkey_slayer]

22% would be the number of people that killed a bird in relation to license sales. Here in Va landowners and certain kin do not need to buy a license but still need to report the kill. So overall the % is just an estimate cause they have no way of knowing how many hunters there actually are cause of land owners and people that don't buy a license (yes there a lot of people that dont that are suppose to). Ask your game warden how they figure yearly kills. He will say by the number of game checked in plus a percentage to cover game not checked in and illegal kills.

[WildTigerTrout]

The last time I saw statistics on Pa. the success rate was 17 to 18%.

[wisconsinteacher]

I think WI for the last few years has been 22-26%.  A lot of guys buy a tag and never step in the woods or only hunt the first 2 hours of a few days and quit if they do not have a bird.  Many here treat it like deer season.  "A chance to drink beer and get away from the wife."

[bowhunter32]

also remember we still are a select group......

[dirt road ninja]

I'm not sure about the state. I've gotten to hunt a total of 9 days so far, I've only been the shooter for 6.5 days. 2 days I was hunting with my eight year old and he killed one. 1/2 a day I hunted with a friend's 11 year old and we did not get one. I've killed one and watched a friend kill one in the remaining 6.5 days.
I keep a log at the camp for the Mississippi Turkey survey and log all the birds seen, kills, gobblers heard, hours hunting, and number of gobbles. If I had guess at my success rate it would be around 30%. I would say that I have a shot at a bird once in every 3.5 days of hunting.

[bird]

The DNR claims that we have a 40%+ success rate here in Iowa.

[catdaddy]

That seems about right--maybe a touch low.  However, there was a post on here awhile back where a good number of folks claimed they would kill 50% to 75% of the gobblers they heard gobble on the roost 3 times==they were some real turkey wizards.