Quote from: eggshell on May 30, 2023, 06:19:07 PM
You are right again Gobblenut. This spring in my out of state hunt we counted 24 gobblers in fields around houses, barns and private adjacent to the public land we hunted for years. every pull off had vehicles and birds were very scarce on public. Thank Gosh we had about three hundred acres of private posted land to ourselves. That didn't help me but my buddy took two and another hunter on the property took a bird. Here at home I see it big time and again I am very privileged to be able to have 1200 acres of highly controlled and managed private to hunt. It makes a huge difference when birds aren't getting daily horror film experiences and constant harassing. If I ever have to go full on public I may just quit. i realize many of you don't get the chance for a fully private hunting spot and I feel for you, but I am not apologizing for 100 years of land management my family has practiced. We are proof if you take care of the land the resource will be there. That is why I think hunting pressure does play a part in declining populations.
The last three years, I/we have hunted four different western states that have proven to have the same conditions. The areas consisted of a checkerboard of private and public holdings,...typical for many places with National Forests, BLM lands, and equivalent. In each instance, the circumstances have been the same. In each state, the turkeys were stacked up on private land,...and with relatively few, and highly pressured, birds on the adjacent public stuff.
We could drive around at any time of day and see flocks of turkeys with strutting gobblers on the private property,...often within shotgun distance of houses. Could we have obtained permission to hunt those turkeys if we had asked? Perhaps,...but none of us were wanting to kill a gobbler badly enough to shoot one that was human-conditioned enough that they were hanging out in somebody's barnyard, front lawn, or driveway. Unfortunately, over the past couple of decades, that situation more and more seems to be the norm rather than the exception.
