First Poults Good/Bad

[zelmo1]

I saw my first poults of the year yesterday, that's good. The hen only had 2/3, that's bad. Z

[Farmboy27]

That's still better than seeing 6 hens together with nothing like I did this morning!!

[compton30]

3+ poults per hen on a statewide level is considered very good. Hopefully the rest of the hens are doing as well!

[zelmo1]

Concerned about the overall health of our turkeys around here. Hen sightings are down the last 3 years. Hunter take and participation are up. Going in different directions, seems scary to me. Z

[Kyle_Ott]

Concerned about the overall health of our turkeys around here. Hen sightings are down the last 3 years. Hunter take and participation are up. Going in different directions, seems scary to me. Z

Interesting to see how the tune changes. Several years ago I sent you a message expressing concerns about promoting and discussing your particular state.  And now, here you are talking about numbers being down and hunter participation being up.

What's happening in these states is a repeated story.  Guys get on forums, Youtube and Facebook exposing a premier destination with robust bird numbers.  10's of thousands of people see the post/social media content and they decide they want to experience it, too.  So they go there with their buddies and all of a sudden, hunreds of very capable turkey hunters infiltrate these areas and they kill their full limits.  Now you've got hundreds and even thousands of gobblers in some cases being harvested annually that weren't being killed 5 years ago. 

In many cases, that's when you start to see the posts from guys talking about how things ain't as good as they once were.  And at that point, the cat is out of the bag and you just cross your fingers you get good poult production to maintain some degree of quality hunting.

If folks would talk less about their success the resource would be better off. 

Folks would also be considerably better off if they would lobby their representatives to limit all NONRES turkey hunters to 1 bird in their respective states.

[nativeks]

Concerned about the overall health of our turkeys around here. Hen sightings are down the last 3 years. Hunter take and participation are up. Going in different directions, seems scary to me. Z

Interesting to see how the tune changes. Several years ago I sent you a message expressing concerns about promoting and discussing your particular state.  And now, here you are talking about numbers being down and hunter participation being up.

What's happening in these states is a repeated story.  Guys get on forums, Youtube and Facebook exposing a premier destination with robust bird numbers.  10's of thousands of people see the post/social media content and they decide they want to experience it, too.  So they go there with their buddies and all of a sudden, hunreds of very capable turkey hunters infiltrate these areas and they kill their full limits.  Now you've got hundreds and even thousands of gobblers in some cases being harvested annually that weren't being killed 5 years ago. 

In many cases, that's when you start to see the posts from guys talking about how things ain't as good as they once were.  And at that point, the cat is out of the bag and you just cross your fingers you get good poult production to maintain some degree of quality hunting.

If folks would talk less about their success the resource would be better off. 

Folks would also be considerably better off if they would lobby their representatives to limit all NONRES turkey hunters to 1 bird in their respective states.

See Kansas as an example.

[zelmo1]

I posted here, on our private blog. No sense lying about the situation here. I understand that people see this blog but I just provided info to our members. It's mismanagement and timeliness that are hurting the resource. That's my point and concern. Z