Way to go Alabama!

[Hobbes]

If your numbers are as far down as folks describe, you have to start somewhere to make improvements or at least stabilize the flock.  Later starting dates and decreased bag limits sure as heck won't cause a decline in numbers.  So what if it's not the final solution.   Stand around passing up partial solutions in hopes for the perfect solution and you'll find yourself doing too little too late.

[n2deer]

If your numbers are as far down as folks describe, you have to start somewhere to make improvements or at least stabilize the flock.  Later starting dates and decreased bag limits sure as heck won't cause a decline in numbers.  So what if it's not the final solution.   Stand around passing up partial solutions in hopes for the perfect solution and you'll find yourself doing too little too late.

But are numbers really down? Alabama had the best harvest ever recorded last year. 

[dzsmith]

If Mississippi stays at March 15th they will get hammered every year.   They will make a boat load of money but the turkeys  will pay the price.

Its been getting hammered man.

[Hobbes]

If your numbers are as far down as folks describe, you have to start somewhere to make improvements or at least stabilize the flock.  Later starting dates and decreased bag limits sure as heck won't cause a decline in numbers.  So what if it's not the final solution.   Stand around passing up partial solutions in hopes for the perfect solution and you'll find yourself doing too little too late.

But are numbers really down? Alabama had the best harvest ever recorded last year.

I can't help you there.  I'm making a general statement that applies anywhere.  I've not been in the SE in years.  There seems to be a general consensus that numbers are down in a lot of the US. 

[guesswho]

But are numbers really down? Alabama had the best harvest ever recorded last year.

I think Georgia also has a record harvest.   But I was expecting that, thank you COVID.    Our population numbers aren't even close to what they were 7-10 ten years ago.   It will be interesting to see the harvest numbers this year, but I'm betting they won't be close to last years.   The cause and solution?    I have no idea. 

[Turkeytider]

If your numbers are as far down as folks describe, you have to start somewhere to make improvements or at least stabilize the flock.  Later starting dates and decreased bag limits sure as heck won't cause a decline in numbers.  So what if it's not the final solution.   Stand around passing up partial solutions in hopes for the perfect solution and you'll find yourself doing too little too late.

But are numbers really down? Alabama had the best harvest ever recorded last year.

If you had the same or approximately the same number of hunters in the woods as pre-COVID , that might indicate good numbers. Otherwise, your increased harvest numbers may only be a reflection of more people shooting turkeys.

[Neill_Prater]

                                                                [/quote]

But are numbers really down? Alabama had the best harvest ever recorded last year.
[/quote]

That's because Alabama has only had "mandatory" reporting for a few years. The percentage of hunters actually doing so has gradually increased and probably has little, if any correlation with fluctuations in the actual harvest.

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[Turkeytider]

If anyone has the "scientific research" that has been done to bring about this change, I would love to see it. I'm talking about legitimate research proving how this shortened limit and later season will magically bring up turkey numbers. Not chuckle saying how he feels that this is a good idea. How about some research data that show turkey population numbers in areas vs. population numbers of areas that get hunted on 3/15. I would love to see that data since that would prove that the change is justified. Anyone have that available?

The scientific data is there supporting later starting dates. Not comparison studies that you desire but studies of breeding habits and how hunting pressure effects recruitment.

With advancements in GPS tracking biologist have been able to gain extensive valuable info on the habits of these birds. In the past they used to have to manually track these birds with radio collars and receivers. Now all they have to do is show up, connect to the transmitter, and download the data. The amount of data they gather dwarfs radio collar/ receiver data they collected in the past.

These studies are showing that turkeys breed in an expanded/exploded Lek type system similar to sharptail grouse/prairie chicken Leks where all the birds in an area show up to these Leks to breed. Turkeys are the same but on an expanded level. These Leks allow hens to choose the dominant toms to breed with.

What studies are showing, contrary to popular belief, is when a hen chooses a dominant Tom to breed with its not a decision made on the spur of the moment. The future of the species depends on it. Its not a decision she takes lightly. When these dominant toms are taken out of the population too early in the breeding cycle it delays/prolongs the breeding cycle. Hens don't just breed with next available Tom. She has to go through  the whole process of selecting a dominant Tom again. The decision might take a day it might take 2 weeks or more depending on the social structure of the toms in the area.
What they are finding also is that hens don't just breed willy nilly. They breed according to their pecking order. The Dominant hen breeds 1st. This might take a day or 2 even more. When she's done the second in line takes her turn and so on.
You might say "so what at least the hens are getting bred".

Well  they are also finding turkeys use a saturation type nesting system. Most hens in an area will nest and hatch their polts during short period of time. Saturating the landscape with predator food. Eating is good but only for a short period of time.
Delaying the breeding by taking dominant toms out of the population prolongs the availability of these polts and vulnerable hens to predators allowing for more to be taken.

Findings also show polts that hatch later in the breeding cycle are less likely to survive their 1st year simply because they are just not big enough.

There is scientific data that supports later starting dates.
It's not the end all be all solution to falling turkey numbers but it is one of the factors we can control.

Dr. Mike Chamberlain and others hold this position. Timing is everything in turkey breeding and poult survival. Disrupting the breeding cycle and its timing, thereby reducing or eliminating the "poult flood " is apparently a concept either not understood or just flat not accepted by far too many hunters. Toms are like drone bees. Once the max number of hens are bred, they become more "expendable " in a way that will not do nearly as much harm to the population. I`ve believed that if you started the season a couple of weeks later, maybe tack on a few extra days on the back end of the season, it will help. Won`t completely solve the population issue, but I believe it will help.

[nativeks]

Just my observation but when we ran from April 15th to May 15th we had tons of birds. Then we went to starting april 1 to may 31 and numbers have decreased in my area 90% since the peak. No chicken litter spreading here. Also the number of folks coming here has increased astronomically.

[Pluffmud]

Not too long ago, the wild turkey was basically extinct in SC. Their rebound is a huge wildlife management success story. Numbers peaked within the last decade, and now we are seeing  numbers decrease a little. Am I overly concerned? No, wildlife population numbers always fluctuate. However, we will watch what happens. In response to this decline, SCDNR has decided to reduce harvest limits, length of season and adjust dates, one bird per day and in first ten days, etc... They say that the hatch has not been good the past few years. Which is ironic, as I hunt turkeys on public land atleast 3 days every week, and the public lands where I hunt were all prescribed burned in massive tracts all throughout the months of March to July. And they wonder wht hatch numbers were low. Yeah, reducing harvest will fix it...

[Neill_Prater]

Okay. I may step on some toes here, so ask for forgiveness in advance.

I started turkey hunting here in Missouri in 1977, turning 26 during that first season. Killed my first gobbler in 79, tagged out for the first time in 80. Thought I was a pro then, but that's another story.

We've always, in modern history, had a mandatory tagging and check in system for deer and turkey. In those days, it was an adhesive backed paper tag issued by the state via the license vendor. I think, not sure, that those tags were not replaceable.

Every animal had to be transported to a certified check station the day of harvest. Memory fails me, but I think, because of our closure of noon, one o'clock DST, 6:00 pm was the cutoff time for checking in a Spring turkey. Additionally, we had a very restrictive season of fourteen days, two bird limit, one bird each week. Each tag was only good for 7 days, so if you didn't score the first week, your limit was 1 bird the next.

Every hunter like me in Missouri who began hunting in the modern era "grew up" with that system, and mindset, of mandatory tagging and reporting. It was just the way things were done, and most hunters complied. Was there cheating, poaching? Of course, some people will never follow the rules no matter the consequences, otherwise the prisons would be empty.

Fast forward a few years, and circumstances allowed me to hunt in Mississippi a couple of years in 1989 and 90, if I remember correctly. The limit was, I am sure, 3 birds like it is now.

I suppose I inherited my Dad's ability to converse with people in that, for whatever reason, people feel comfortable talking to me, and I found those in the South, for the most part, friendly and inviting.

Talking to virtually every hunter I ran into, a picture of the culture began to emerge. Most, if not all, openly admitted to exceeding the limit. One colorful young man told me that he had a friend that bagged 15 gobblers the year before. Several were shot strutting in a field with a rifle, which was legal at that time. He was appalled by the method, but seemed less concerned about the numbers, and freely admitted he killed way more than the limit every year.

Another hunter, about my age at the time, told me it was only his second year of chasing turkeys, he had only deer hunted prior to that, and was obsessed with it. He had killed 7 birds the previous year. Said the long season was just too tempting and he just couldn't stop going. To his credit, he said he felt bad, and wasn't going to do it again. Who knows if he maintained that attitude.

Add almost a decade, and I was able to hunt Mississippi again for a couple of years, but things had changed a bit. Birds on the Delta, where I had hunted before, were virtually extirpated by the flood of 93. Birds were scarce on public land throughout the state, and a no jakes rule had gone into effect. In those 2 years of hunting, I managed to kill only one bird, so began looking for somewhere new to try, and after talking to several people, decided to give Alabama a try.

Five bird limit, 6 week season. It must be Heaven! I serendipitously ran into a local the next year while hunting there who ultimately became one of my closest friends and have been fortunate enough to go down and hunt with him annually the ensuing 20 years or so.

A lot has changed in those 20+ years. I never did set the world on fire with my turkey harvest numbers. Public land hunting in the South is tough, but I managed most years to bag a bag a bird or two and goof up on more than that. The population has definitely seemed to decrease on  the limited areas of public land I hunt every year, and the harvest numbers on those areas reflect that while the feral hog population has exploded.

But I digress from the subject. My friend there is a straight shooter, but he knows lots of other hunters, and it's obvious from his experience that the culture I witnessed 30 years ago in Mississippi is still alive and well, at least to some extent.

He has told me several times that it's kind of common knowledge among his acquaintances that certain people through the years never seem to kill their 5th gobbler. One through four are always bragged about, then radio silence. Since the mandatory reporting has come into play, he says guys he knows still don't report all their deer kills, even though they are all completely legal.

In my opinion, until that culture changes, most of data regarding harvest numbers throughout the South is largely a guess. The extremely long seasons are basically an invitation to cheat. The length of the season definitely influences the total harvest, no matter what the legal limit might be.

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[Dtrkyman]

It would be great if all the south started later, keep those boys there and leave us northern hunters alone

Just kidding but I would guess that's why guys argue for the early hunting so they can travel and extend their season!


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[Sixes]

Covid, over the limit, too many move ins and out of state hunters, etc  still doesn't explain what happened to the hens.


No hens in the state of Georgia have been legally killed and very few are poached, but they have all but  disappeared in a lot of areas.

My club on the GA/AL line has a bunch of birds and has zero agriculture, zero predator control and the population has been stable for years. Same on another tract that I hunt in mid GA, no AG, no predator hunters, but a big population. Same where I work, stable to growing population.

The big quail plantation and the surrounding area with heavy AG, heavy predator trapping and prime habitat that I keep talking about and it is full of quail, but the turkeys died of something.

The difference in the quail plantation and the other clubs that I hunt is there is an abundance of hens on the non AG area tracts.

I have no idea what happened or what will help, but reducing the number of gobblers or time allowed to hunt them will not effect the number of hens and in turn, the number of their poults.

[Turkeytider]

Covid, over the limit, too many move ins and out of state hunters, etc  still doesn't explain what happened to the hens.


No hens in the state of Georgia have been legally killed and very few are poached, but they have all but  disappeared in a lot of areas.

My club on the GA/AL line has a bunch of birds and has zero agriculture, zero predator control and the population has been stable for years. Same on another tract that I hunt in mid GA, no AG, no predator hunters, but a big population. Same where I work, stable to growing population.

The big quail plantation and the surrounding area with heavy AG, heavy predator trapping and prime habitat that I keep talking about and it is full of quail, but the turkeys died of something.

The difference in the quail plantation and the other clubs that I hunt is there is an abundance of hens on the non AG area tracts.

I have no idea what happened or what will help, but reducing the number of gobblers or time allowed to hunt them will not effect the number of hens and in turn, the number of their poults.

That`s interesting. I can only assume that in the areas that have few hens there are few gobblers as well. Could well be a problem with nest/poult survival. Interdict the breeding cycle by taking out dominant gobblers too early you could have fewer hens bred and hens bred intermittently. Nesting gets spaced out, thus no poult storm to overwhelm predators and increase the number of survivors. Hens that do nest later after going through another tom selection process have lower poult survival, that`s been recorded, It`s a cascade that ends up with fewer turkeys, both hens and gobblers.

[Sixes]

It wasn't really gradual,  it was over about 2 seasons. Turkeys, lots of hens and gobblers, all over the property and area, you couldn't drive to lunch and not see strutters standing in open AG fields. You couldn't ride around at 830 in thr morning or half hour before dark and not see hens strolling around.

Then, it was like everything died out. Gobblers and hens.

Even if there was a couple of bad hatches, that doesn't explain all the missing adults from one year to the next.