Oklahoma going from 3 to 1

[owlhoot]

4878 fall turkeys were killed in Oklahoma in 2019. Slightly higher than their 10 year average, charts do not show 2020 data.

I think you're wrong. You are looking at harvest estimates based on
2,447 licensed hunters of which only 1,402 actually hunted.
I'm looking at actual harvest numbers by county for all 77 counties.
I'm not looking at an estimate.

So for this to be right , your saying that 1402 hunted and killed 4878 turkey in the fall. That would be one heck of a success rate estimate.

No - that's not what were saying. If you read the link that WV provided,
the state of Oklahoma attempted to contact 5,954 hunters. They were
only able to get interviews completed for 2,447 hunters. Of those 2,447
hunters who had a license and were interviewed, 1,402 hunters actually
hunted. So not everyone who bought a license actually went hunting.

This is a sample of the total number of hunters and they are basing their
harvest "estimates" on the info received from these 1,402 hunters.
There is obviously a lot more hunters in Oklahoma than this, but they're
estimating their harvest on this small sample size.

If you read the link that WV provided it will make more sense.

Got it. Maybe. So the 1402 who provided information killed 109 fall turkey. And then they used that to estimate 4878 turkey kill using the estimated amount of all turkey hunters in the state.

No -  the 109 hens that were killed were the ones that were on the
Oklahoma harvest report for all hunters from Sep 1 2020 to Dec 31 2020.
That's why I'm saying the 4,878 birds looks like a bogus number.
I'm looking at actual numbers not estimated numbers.
I can only go off the info that I can find. If anybody here lives in
Oklahoma and has some different numbers please post them up.

Owlhoot - look at my previous posts in this thread and go to the site I
mentioned and you can find the same info I found.

Alrighty . will get after it tomorrow. 44 hrs -3 hrs sleep I'm out for now , have a good one.

[Sir-diealot]

For all you guys railing against the killing of hens - I looked up the fall harvest numbers for all 77 counties in Oklahoma.
I don't know when Oklahoma's fall season was in 2020, so I put the dates for my fall harvest numbers from September 1st, 2020 to                   
December 31st, 2020 in Oklahoma's website.
Between both archery and gun seasons, there were 252 gobblers and
109 hens taken. 179 gobblers and 99 hens were taken with archery
equipment. 73 gobblers and 10 hens were taken with firearms.

I think you're fooling yourself if you think saving 109 hens over a whole
state is going to make that big of a difference. Yeah, you can argue that
every hen helps and no one can disagree with that, but in the grand
scheme of things it means little to nothing.

I don't know much about Oklahoma, so if I'm missing something let
me know.

109 hens lay a clutch of eggs, say two survive from each clutch 109 x 2 = 218 now say they go one to lay a clutch each (Just for arguments sake we will say they were all hens) 218 got one to lay clutches and 2 from those survive 218 x 2 = 436 more hen (again just for arguments sake) those 436 go on to lay clutches and they have 2 survive so 436 x 2 = 872 now they go on to have 2 survive from each clutch 1744 now imagine if that is done over a 10 year period each time multiplying by two, that is a lot of turkey over time if they eliminate hunting hens. Of course the flock on the next block had better have a bunch of jakes. lol

[Jimspur]

For all you guys railing against the killing of hens - I looked up the fall harvest numbers for all 77 counties in Oklahoma.
I don't know when Oklahoma's fall season was in 2020, so I put the dates for my fall harvest numbers from September 1st, 2020 to                   
December 31st, 2020 in Oklahoma's website.
Between both archery and gun seasons, there were 252 gobblers and
109 hens taken. 179 gobblers and 99 hens were taken with archery
equipment. 73 gobblers and 10 hens were taken with firearms.

I think you're fooling yourself if you think saving 109 hens over a whole
state is going to make that big of a difference. Yeah, you can argue that
every hen helps and no one can disagree with that, but in the grand
scheme of things it means little to nothing.

I don't know much about Oklahoma, so if I'm missing something let
me know.

109 hens lay a clutch of eggs, say two survive from each clutch 109 x 2 = 218 now say they go one to lay a clutch each (Just for arguments sake we will say they were all hens) 218 got one to lay clutches and 2 from those survive 218 x 2 = 436 more hen (again just for arguments sake) those 436 go on to lay clutches and they have 2 survive so 436 x 2 = 872 now they go on to have 2 survive from each clutch 1744 now imagine if that is done over a 10 year period each time multiplying by two, that is a lot of turkey over time if they eliminate hunting hens. Of course the flock on the next block had better have a bunch of jakes. lol

Theory sounds a lot better than reality. The reality is that half of them won't have any poults, and we'll say the ones that do have 2 poults. So if you take 55 hens at 2 poults each that's 110 more turkeys, of which half are gobblers. This is in an entire state of 77 counties.

I'm sorry, but that comes out to an extra .71 hens/county and an extra
.71 gobblers/county.

While I can't argue that every hen helps, I can argue that that's not
going to be nearly enough to right the ship.

[Sir-diealot]

For all you guys railing against the killing of hens - I looked up the fall harvest numbers for all 77 counties in Oklahoma.
I don't know when Oklahoma's fall season was in 2020, so I put the dates for my fall harvest numbers from September 1st, 2020 to                   
December 31st, 2020 in Oklahoma's website.
Between both archery and gun seasons, there were 252 gobblers and
109 hens taken. 179 gobblers and 99 hens were taken with archery
equipment. 73 gobblers and 10 hens were taken with firearms.

I think you're fooling yourself if you think saving 109 hens over a whole
state is going to make that big of a difference. Yeah, you can argue that
every hen helps and no one can disagree with that, but in the grand
scheme of things it means little to nothing.

I don't know much about Oklahoma, so if I'm missing something let
me know.

109 hens lay a clutch of eggs, say two survive from each clutch 109 x 2 = 218 now say they go one to lay a clutch each (Just for arguments sake we will say they were all hens) 218 got one to lay clutches and 2 from those survive 218 x 2 = 436 more hen (again just for arguments sake) those 436 go on to lay clutches and they have 2 survive so 436 x 2 = 872 now they go on to have 2 survive from each clutch 1744 now imagine if that is done over a 10 year period each time multiplying by two, that is a lot of turkey over time if they eliminate hunting hens. Of course the flock on the next block had better have a bunch of jakes. lol

Theory sounds a lot better than reality. The reality is that half of them won't have any poults, and we'll say the ones that do have 2 poults. So if you take 55 hens at 2 poults each that's 110 more turkeys, of which half are gobblers. This is in an entire state of 77 counties.

I'm sorry, but that comes out to an extra .71 hens/county and an extra
.71 gobblers/county.

While I can't argue that every hen helps, I can argue that that's not
going to be nearly enough to right the ship.

Actually if I understood the program right on Meateater Chamberlain said that only 20% of all hatched eggs are male. I may have misunderstood that but I do not think so. Also I did say "Just for arguments sake we will say they were all hens" I am horrible at math by the way so my numbers there may have been off.

[Jimspur]

I have always heard that the gobbler/hen ratio was 50/50.
I'll check into it.

[Sir-diealot]

I have always heard that the gobbler/hen ratio was 50/50.
I'll check into it.

This is the program, if I misunderstood something don't feel bad about pointing it out to me, that is how we learn. https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-214-gobbling-your--off

[Neill_Prater]

Couldn't bear to read every post in this thread word for word, but anyone who thinks there's any correlation between reality and harvest numbers in Oklahoma or many other locales is delusional. They survey a relatively small percentage of hunters and extrapolate the results and come up with an estimate.

Even in states which have only relatively recently entered the modern world of game management by requiring the tagging and reporting of turkey and deer (Alabama for example), the numbers are basically a joke because of non-compliance. Until jurisdictions put some teeth in the penalty for failure to report harvests, those figures are going to continue to be a joke.


Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

[Jimspur]

I have always heard that the gobbler/hen ratio was 50/50.
I'll check into it.

This is the program, if I misunderstood something don't feel bad about pointing it out to me, that is how we learn. https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-214-gobbling-your--off

I didn't hear him mention male/female ratio when he was talking about nesting. But I gotta tell you, that was depressing.
He said that 80% of eastern turkey nests are lost. 20% are successful
and have at least one poult. Only 1/3 of those successful 20% have at
least one poult that makes it to one month old.
From East Texas to South Carolina only 7% of nests produce one or more
poults that survive. Depressing!

[Sir-diealot]

I have always heard that the gobbler/hen ratio was 50/50.
I'll check into it.

This is the program, if I misunderstood something don't feel bad about pointing it out to me, that is how we learn. https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-214-gobbling-your--off

I didn't hear him mention male/female ratio when he was talking about nesting. But I gotta tell you, that was depressing.
He said that 80% of eastern turkey nests are lost. 20% are successful
and have at least one poult. Only 1/3 of those successful 20% have at
least one poult that makes it to one month old.
From East Texas to South Carolina only 7% of nests produce one or more
poults that survive. Depressing!

Maybe that is where I got the 20% from, I guess I misunderstood.

[Roost 1]

How about an all of the above as far as solutions go. If you guys think this problems is going to turn around in a few years l got news for you. It took 40 years for the reintroduction of turkeys to get to boom levels of 15 years ago. Stop shooting hens, stop shooting dominant toms before breeding, limit the number of toms that can be taken during the season, predator control, better habitat,. Stop the downward spiral and than maybe you can think about rehabilitation.
All I hear on here is me, me, me, your limiting my opprotunities. Damn right they are how else do you think things might change. The rehabilitation of the wild turkey didn't happen because everybody and thier brother was out running across America trampling through the woods during spring breeding and nesting, shooting all the turkeys they possibly could spring or fall. That's what happened during the original downfall. Mine, mine, mine! Open your eyes people. The areas that need help are going to have to sacrifice. Predators, that problem isn't going away anytime soon. Do what you can if you can and it may help. Habitat, expanding populations across the world aren't going to help that one. The one  area that wildlife managers  can hopefully influence these down turns is hunter participation and mortality whether caused directly by shooting birds or indirectly by disrupting breeding cycles. People are crying out that something needs to be done. When they try people start bitching! What would you have them do? Should they go to Weyerhauser and tell them the pine plantations that you grow for the wood that builds houses across the world need to be managed for turkeys and not pine trees? Are they supposed to go to NY fashion shows and tell them fur is in again?
30 some years ago I spent a spring in Northern Ga. Took me almost 3 weeks of hunting everyday before I heard my 1st gobble. The yearly trips after that seen the population slowly increase before I had to stop going down there. This year I returned for the 1st time in 20 years and there were more birds gobbling by far than anything I heard in the 90's.  Population decrease? Damn you guys are spoiled! I keep hearing that turkey populations started to decline with the collapse in the fur market. I wonder what happened about the same time? The dramatic increase in the number of turkey hunters storming through the woods. Not just local turkey hunters, hunters that travel across the country taking 3,5,10 birds a season.Time for some people to suck it up and realized this is a finite resource. Stomping through the woods and spooking hens off nests has an effect, shooting dominant toms before peak breeding has an effect, shooting hens has an effect.

The best post in the 4 pages of this thread and nobody wants to comment about....
That in itself shows the real problem...

As far as the rest of the comments.... Hens make gobblers bottom line. Protect your hens and you will have gobblers.  I hunted 11 states this year didn't see but a handful of jakes anywhere, the problem last 3yrs I've seen in my travels are that there are more gobblers than hens.  This makes the few gobbles very susceptible to  calling.  Furthermore the more people around the country I talk to the more I hear, "well we drove 300 miles and "fanned" 4 gobblers to the gun in ONE DAY!!!!!!
Fanning and strutting decoys need to outlawed as well as any hen killing, fall or spring!!!

[deadbuck]

Corn and game cameras need to be outlawed during turkey season also

[Roost 1]

Corn and game cameras need to be outlawed during turkey season also

Another issue nobody wants to talk about...
Absolutely ridiculous regs in the states that allow it.

[Jimspur]

How about an all of the above as far as solutions go. If you guys think this problems is going to turn around in a few years l got news for you. It took 40 years for the reintroduction of turkeys to get to boom levels of 15 years ago. Stop shooting hens, stop shooting dominant toms before breeding, limit the number of toms that can be taken during the season, predator control, better habitat,. Stop the downward spiral and than maybe you can think about rehabilitation.
All I hear on here is me, me, me, your limiting my opprotunities. Damn right they are how else do you think things might change. The rehabilitation of the wild turkey didn't happen because everybody and thier brother was out running across America trampling through the woods during spring breeding and nesting, shooting all the turkeys they possibly could spring or fall. That's what happened during the original downfall. Mine, mine, mine! Open your eyes people. The areas that need help are going to have to sacrifice. Predators, that problem isn't going away anytime soon. Do what you can if you can and it may help. Habitat, expanding populations across the world aren't going to help that one. The one  area that wildlife managers  can hopefully influence these down turns is hunter participation and mortality whether caused directly by shooting birds or indirectly by disrupting breeding cycles. People are crying out that something needs to be done. When they try people start bitching! What would you have them do? Should they go to Weyerhauser and tell them the pine plantations that you grow for the wood that builds houses across the world need to be managed for turkeys and not pine trees? Are they supposed to go to NY fashion shows and tell them fur is in again?
30 some years ago I spent a spring in Northern Ga. Took me almost 3 weeks of hunting everyday before I heard my 1st gobble. The yearly trips after that seen the population slowly increase before I had to stop going down there. This year I returned for the 1st time in 20 years and there were more birds gobbling by far than anything I heard in the 90's.  Population decrease? Damn you guys are spoiled! I keep hearing that turkey populations started to decline with the collapse in the fur market. I wonder what happened about the same time? The dramatic increase in the number of turkey hunters storming through the woods. Not just local turkey hunters, hunters that travel across the country taking 3,5,10 birds a season.Time for some people to suck it up and realized this is a finite resource. Stomping through the woods and spooking hens off nests has an effect, shooting dominant toms before peak breeding has an effect, shooting hens has an effect.

The best post in the 4 pages of this thread and nobody wants to comment about....
That in itself shows the real problem...

As far as the rest of the comments.... Hens make gobblers bottom line. Protect your hens and you will have gobblers.  I hunted 11 states this year didn't see but a handful of jakes anywhere, the problem last 3yrs I've seen in my travels are that there are more gobblers than hens.  This makes the few gobbles very susceptible to  calling.  Furthermore the more people around the country I talk to the more I hear, "well we drove 300 miles and "fanned" 4 gobblers to the gun in ONE DAY!!!!!!
Fanning and strutting decoys need to outlawed as well as any hen killing, fall or spring!!!

I find it ironic that you say that Paulmyr's post is the best in 4 pages of this thread, yet he identifies people like you as part of the problem.
Did you not read where he was talking about, "hunters that travel across
the country taking 3, 5, 10 birds a season".
I would like to hear your comments on that as well as where you stand
on the use of decoys. You want fanning and strutting decoys outlawed.
How do you feel about hen decoys?
                                                       Jim

[Roost 1]

Jim, I'll try to answer your questions best I can.
1- I do travel to hunt but very rarely kill more than 1 bird anywhere I travel to.  Not because I can't but because I choose not to.
2- if you look at turkey harvest number from "most" states over last 15yrs you will see a drastic increase in harvest numbers about 2010 which is about the time when the first strutting decoys got popular. They were on the market before then but most hunters wouldn't pay $100 for one. That rapidly changed along with fanning/reaping.
Hen decoys In my opinion don't make a significant difference. A henned up gobbler is not gonna leave his harem to come to another hen.

The reason I like Paul's post is because there is a lot of truth in it. I have hunted TN for at least 25yrs, I've watched as the turkey population exploded(mid-90s) to the present day decline.  Yet I still hear guys saying there is no decline, well that's simply not true and it's just selfishness on those peoples part. Now, maybe they are new to turkey hunting and don't know that the good ol days were 15yrs ago, but they should listen to reason.
Personally I don't kill more than 1 bird on any of
Y TN or KY farms. I did kill 2 birds on same farm in GA but only because I hadn't killed one there in 2yrs and there are plenty of birds and I'm the only one that hunts it.
Moving forward, I'm still gonna hunt multiple states, if allowed. However I'm totally NOT against opening seasons later, reducing bag limits, or ANY restrictions that benefit the wild turkey.
You see I cam remember when we didn't have a huntable population here in KY and I'm afraid it could be that way again at the rate things are going.
I'd also like to say that I absolutely don't believe hunting pressure is the cause of the decline.
There are many factors involved which is a very lengthy conversation and I can't type that well.

Hope these answers help you to know where I stand.

[Jimspur]

Thanks for replying Roost 1 - I think you touched on one of the issues
and that is the fact that younger hunters don't know when the peak was,
and don't remember back when you were lucky to hear a bird gobble
at all. When I started hunting here in Maryland, you had to go to the
3 westernmost counties to hunt spring gobblers. The rest of the state was
closed. These younger hunters don't know how bad things can get,
because they've never seen low turkey populations. They only know the
good times.

I also don't believe that hunting pressure is the cause of the decline.
I think that poor nesting success is the cause due to a number of issues.
Habitat is not as good, way more predators, and the list goes on.

I know where I live in Maryland, we have more hunters and probably half the birds we had 10 years ago.

I do agree with you on eliminating fanning and strutter decoys. I would
take it a step further and eliminate all decoy use, at least until populations
bounce back.

There is the possibility that no matter what we do, it's not going to help.
This might be our new normal.

Thanks for your thoughts, Jim