The Solution

[jpc1317]

I would also like to add his important deer hunting has become. I used to be able to knock on anyone's door and be allowed to turn my coon dogs loose. Now, it's "you can't run those dogs because they'll scare the deer."  I have all but stopped it's so hard to get access.  In about 2008-2009 , when I first noticed declines in my local flock, we struggled to find raccoons. It might take 2 creek bottoms before we got a strike. But on the other end of the spectrum, when we were hearing 5-6 birds a morning we had a much healthier raccoon population and could get a strike on any water source. It's almost as if the whole woods caught a sickness when we started seeing a decline in every animal.

[owlhoot]

South Carolina has had a coyote bounty since 2016.  The link provided indicates it has had an impact on the coyote population.  Would be good to see turkey population data correlated to coyote population data.

https://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/coyote/coyoteincentive.html


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Wow that's neat. 40 people got lifetime hunting licenses.
Killing around 25k coyotes , great.  Turkey being killed 14k.  No problem here?
Coyote , no idea how many hunters. Turkey hunters 43k. That estimate is that 67% of people with permits actually hunted. So 33% bought tags and didn't hunt?
Now to the nest robbers. Racoons population?
40-50 raccoons per square mile in rural Missouri, report 2017.
Last major distemper outbreaks , when and where? Thanks in advance.

[howl]

These things always come down to habitat and predation. Government can address neither of those. So, they make a pretense of doing something by changing regulations. Admitting they can do little would erode faith in their monopoly on enforcement and the attendant revenue stream of tax.

Killing coyotes and coons is good. Killing bobcats is better. I was hoping the popularity of xylitol sweeteners would put a dent in coyote populations by coyotes feeding on garbage. That is not happening. I only hear of unfortunate cases where a family pet died after it got a pack of gum, etc. Perhaps we should all buy our wives coon coats and coyote stoles. Bobcat hats?

The predators we cannot touch, raptors, are on the rise and have been. Consider how many time you've had a hawk fly up when calling to turkeys. Owls, too.

I think crows are the worst. They hunt nesting hens for eggs. So, I kill as many as I can every winter. The crows that die here are probably from somewhere else, but maybe I'm helping someone else out.

[brittman]

Wisconsin season kill will drop from just shy of 45K birds in 2020 to around 35K - 38K birds (last "F" season stats not in yet).

2021 harvest will be in the bottom quartile of the past 21 years.  37,800 (2013) was the only time below 38K kill over that time.   

Certainly not bad, but it is closer to the new normal.   

Why the large one year drop in WI

[Meleagris gallopavo]

Or better yet, allow non-resident hunters but mandate the hiring of a local guide or outfitter.

I don't think much of this either for reason stated in my last post.  NO WAY IN HELL am I gonna pay a guide to hunt land I know better than they do.  Absolute nonsense.

Sounds like YOU can be the guide

Nope.  I grew up hunting these woods all my life.  I've seen these woods logged, grow trees and become a woods again.  Not a woods like before but a woods with mature trees nonetheless.  Spent a many and hour in these woods for as long as I can remember.  There are pictures of me in the woods with my dad when he was hunting that I don't remember being taken because I was too young to remember it.  When I got home from school most days I grabbed a gun and went in the woods by myself.  So yes, I could be the guide.  I don't think I call well enough to be a guide nor would I want to be paid to take someone hunting.  I take people hunting because I have a lot of access to property that has a lot of turkeys.  I take folks that are better turkey hunters than I am and can call better than me.  It's more like they're taking me turkey hunting on my own property, except I don't have a gun.  I do it because I enjoy their company and that's how I learn and how I know I need to improve. I like watching others hunt and it's a bonus if they get to shoot something.  I'm happy for them but also happy myself for being there to experience it. The main reason I do it is because I simply love hunting more than anything else I could do to enjoy myself.  It's actually kinda selfish.  So I'm being serious about what I said earlier about the "no way in hell" stuff. 

[hotspur]

These things always come down to habitat and predation. Government can address neither of those. So, they make a pretense of doing something by changing regulations. Admitting they can do little would erode faith in their monopoly on enforcement and the attendant revenue stream of tax.

Killing coyotes and coons is good. Killing bobcats is better. I was hoping the popularity of xylitol sweeteners would put a dent in coyote populations by coyotes feeding on garbage. That is not happening. I only hear of unfortunate cases where a family pet died after it got a pack of gum, etc. Perhaps we should all buy our wives coon coats and coyote stoles. Bobcat hats?

The predators we cannot touch, raptors, are on the rise and have been. Consider how many time you've had a hawk fly up when calling to turkeys. Owls, too.

I think crows are the worst. They hunt nesting hens for eggs. So, I kill as many as I can every winter. The crows that die here are probably from somewhere else, but maybe I'm helping someone else out.

louisiana also has allowed deer hunters to take one bobcat a  year .

[Meleagris gallopavo]

South Carolina has had a coyote bounty since 2016.  The link provided indicates it has had an impact on the coyote population.  Would be good to see turkey population data correlated to coyote population data.

https://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/coyote/coyoteincentive.html


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Wow that's neat. 40 people got lifetime hunting licenses.
Killing around 25k coyotes , great.  Turkey being killed 14k.  No problem here?
Coyote , no idea how many hunters. Turkey hunters 43k. That estimate is that 67% of people with permits actually hunted. So 33% bought tags and didn't hunt?
Now to the nest robbers. Racoons population?
40-50 raccoons per square mile in rural Missouri, report 2017.
Last major distemper outbreaks , when and where? Thanks in advance.

It is neat.  Thanks for the numbers.  I wish I could get a lifetime hunting license.  No one bought me one growing up and I'm not the best with money so I tend to spend money a little at the time and end up spending more in the long run.  It's a personal problem if I let it bother me, which I don't.

So 40 lifetime licenses and 40 less coyotes, I'm good with that because I hate the damned things and when I use the word hate I know exactly what it means.  I get mad every time I see one.  Me and the folks I hunt with shoot them and trap them at will all year.  We run them down and hit them with trucks if we can.  We kill bobcats as seasons permit.  Do I think it helps to kill them like this?  No.  I've told people that it's not making a difference based on what I observe.  Will I still shoot every coyote I see?  Yes, every one of them within shooting range when I have a gun.

We have A LOT of bear.  Do you want to come kill one, be my guest.  The only ones doing bear hunting are the guys with the dogs, boats, GPS collars and radios.  They let us shoot them because we don't have bear dogs and all that.  They just want to hunt them and we just want to kill them.  Bear mess up a lot of hunting too and I imagine they eat fawns and will eat a turkey egg if they happen upon one.  Our deer hunting club in NC (where I'm not a resident btw), killed more bear than deer last year. 

We don't have hardly any deer where we hunt anymore but I remember when we had plenty.  Behind the house I grew up in in NC (where I'm not a resident btw), you could see 100 deer or more in the evenings in the 70s or 80s.  Now you may be lucky to see one.  Do I KNOW what happened?  No. Can I SPECULATE?  Yes!  It seems that on this forum the difference between speculation and knowing something gets muddied somehow.  My speculation is that the reason for the decrease in the whitetail deer population where I hunt as a non-resident is a combination of a change in agricultural practices, cutting timber as soon as it can be cut when the prices are good, the "if it's brown it's down" attitude that some hunters take to harvesting deer, predators, disease, and unknown causes.  My club takes the approach of doing what is in our control, which is shooting only mature bucks that have a certain antler size, which is considerable.  Kids get to shoot "some" does and small bucks without retribution.  For those that hopefully misjudge the size of the antlers and shoot a buck that has antlers below our set harvest parameters, there is enforced financial retribution.  We have a club that hunts adjacent to ours that takes the "if it's brown it's down" approach, but since that is out of our control we focus on ourselves.  I haven't killed a deer since 2008 because I haven't seen one big enough to shoot when I'm hunting.  I really don't mind.  As long as I get to deer hunt I'm satisfied. 

So I really don't know why turkey populations are declining in some areas.  I just post findings I find on the internet because I don't live in a library.  Then I wait for someone to call BS on what I post on OG, either because they don't agree with it or because they have information that conflicts with the information I posted.  I appreciate it when people courteously point out the flaws in what I posted and I "try" to ignore replies that are less than courteous.  Sometimes I can't tell the difference.  Sometimes I simply don't understand what someone wrote or why they wrote it.  But I guess in the end it doesn't matter because I keep on posting these long digital monologues anyway.  It's my nature.

One more thing, sorry.  Where I hunt turkeys we seem to have a thriving population.  I don't know why because I just stated above that we have a bunch of coyotes, bear, and bobcats.  We also have a lot of poachers, non-traditional turkey hunters, traditional turkey hunters, turkey guides (not me), turkey hunters that kill more than the legal limit or take turkeys illegally (I have a nephew that shoots them out of the truck window, but I can't control him, he's in his 30s, but I do tell him I wish he'd stop), and those damned non-resident turkey hunters like myself.  I don't care that you know where I hunt.  I hunt in Suffolk, VA as a resident of Virginia and as a non-resident in Gates, NC.  Good luck finding private land to hunt unless you have deep pockets or know someone like me.  I like taking folks turkey hunting or giving people the opportunity to turkey hunt if they live in a turkey impoverished area or if they've tagged out early and still want to hunt.  There's public land I don't hunt that I don't think anyone sets a foot on to hunt because it's hard to get to.  For me to take you turkey hunting I need to know you and like you.  That's about it.  But I have found that I like very few people that I know.  That's another personal problem that if I cared about it would bother me.

[owlhoot]

Wisconsin season kill will drop from just shy of 45K birds in 2020 to around 35K - 38K birds (last "F" season stats not in yet).

2021 harvest will be in the bottom quartile of the past 21 years.  37,800 (2013) was the only time below 38K kill over that time.   

Certainly not bad, but it is closer to the new normal.   

Why the large one year drop in WI

You can get all kinds of information off Wisconsin dnr site. It has tons of information.
Nothing stood out to me except that the amount of authorizations they have given out has increased around 100k and and the harvest only increased 10-12k for a short time. Is now back down to levels when 100k less authorization 20 years ago. Looks like after 2008-10 they issue around 220k authorizations, since that harvest fell 12-14k and has not recovered since.
Could increasing harvest not leave enough left to allow for further increases?
Could the predator population be increasing?
Wisconsin DNR does report that 74% of hen loss is due to predation.
They reported 1 raccoon every 12-40 acres in good habitat in 2012 and stated populations as robust recently.

[bigriverbum]

Wisconsin season kill will drop from just shy of 45K birds in 2020 to around 35K - 38K birds (last "F" season stats not in yet).

2021 harvest will be in the bottom quartile of the past 21 years.  37,800 (2013) was the only time below 38K kill over that time.   

Certainly not bad, but it is closer to the new normal.   

Why the large one year drop in WI

maybe people not "registering" their harvest online?

i miss the days of taking birds to the registration stations

[bigbird]

Nebraska will be the next state whining about it all. 3 bird spring limit and I believe you can shoot all in one day if you choose? I didn't see where it said otherwise. Stuff like that needs go weather or not you have plenty.

[quavers59]

   In every State- make sure Fanning/ Reaping is Banned. Ban ALL Decoys in every State for 2 Springs at least.
   Ban all TSS Ammo so this Asinine practice of taking 60 + 70 yard Shots is stopped.

[Cowboy]

It is going to take a major die off ...................of turkey"hunters".  "We have met the enemy, and it is us,"

Hmmm, maybe time for Thanos

So we now introduce Bill Gates and Dr. Fauchi.....

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[Cowboy]

Our Turkey population is down as well. We can take up to 3 in the Spring.  The thing here is loss of habitat and huge population of coyotes. Back 30 years ago we didnt have Bobcats like we do now either. Now, we also got these dang armadillos moving in. A game warden in TN told my brother that he had a camera on a hens nest. He was also a Turkey hunter as well by the way. Watched the nest get raided by a coon and also an armadillo right before hatch.

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[Cowboy]

Got a another question to throw out there. Have we seen a harvest increase in the states or areas where hunters are fanning/reaping? Not starting an argument here just curious if the harvests have increased?  I personally have never tried this and dont intend to.

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[Meleagris gallopavo]

Got a another question to throw out there. Have we seen a harvest increase in the states or areas where hunters are fanning/reaping? Not starting an argument here just curious if the harvests have increased?  I personally have never tried this and dont intend to.

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Good question.  That data may be hard to uncover, but maybe not.


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