Observations

[zelmo1]

I have noticed that there are significantly less birds this year, but I have have had more quality opportunities than last year already. Any possible theories? It is hard to pull a boss Tom away from his hens, but it has happened more times this year for me than ever. Maybe even more than my previous 20 years. I am thinking that less birds make more competition. Any thoughts? Side note: I think that last season had many more hunters and they spent more hours in the field. Our kill numbers were way up last year here. I will enjoy your comments, Al Baker

[WV Ridge Reaper]

Al don't take this the wrong way..But in the last two years you have made post about how many birds you have..It's not hard to poke around and see where a fellar lives weather it be google or scanning previous post one has made..I would say between here and what ever other social media platform you have posted about these high bird numbers on,I'd venture to say..Those birds have been kilt or will be this and next year.

Between here and YouTube the bread crumbs are not hard to find..and you can't blame anyone but yourself.

Hope you have a great season with your family!!

[NCL]

Seemed to be the same here. There is pasture down the road that every time I went past last year, there would be several hens and multiple gobblers. This years I did not see a birds on that pasture. The property that I hunt I only saw one hen and did not hear any hens. There were several gobblers on the property, one morning we had seven in front of us. Four were Jakes which hung around for three hours, the three long beards never offered a decent shot. Also usually see birds when I go back and forth to town, there were a few around but not many. There was a hen hanging out in one spot that I saw several times. When I went to town the other day there was a dead bird in the road that may have been her. Hope not as I think he had a nest in the area.

[Greg Massey]

Less pressure, less hunters means more opportunities in my opinion.  If a boss gobbler or gobbler has his number up then it's just his time to die. Nature taking care of nature in a sense.  Also it depends on how you manage your area, in how many turkeys you will have in that area. I don't believe in taking to many gobblers in a given area kill you bird and move on to another location if you can. It's own job to take care of the turkeys just as much as we look for local game officers to take care of them also in my opinion.

[Roost 1]

Liberal fall limits take their toll in a hurry.

[g8rvet]

I think I have noticed the opposite in my area.  There were fewer birds and we put in the boot leather and time to find the ones that were talking only to find another hunter on them in the morning when we went back.  This happened to me 4 times on birds that were way back and not easy to find. I talked to 3 of those guys and they were hard core respectful hunters, none of them doing anything different than what we do-two of them knew who I was because they knew my truck. 

Last year, there were a similar number of hunters, but the birds talked more and we were more successful in the same areas.  It also had a lot to do with me having to take off to hunt when I could and I hunted an abnormally high number of rainy and/or windy days for me this year.

[catman529]

Numbers seemed about normal everywhere I hunted this year, but there was less pressure and pressure died off quicker since everyone wasn't out of work. There were 9 trucks at the gate opening morning, but I still had a whole ridge and a gobbler to myself. Other than that I just ran into the occasional hunter here and there.


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