Gobbling trend over the years

[eggshell]

Pheasants used to hold, and roosters used to cackle upon flushing...  Today the vast majority of roosters will run you to the rubber on your tennis shoes, and a cackling bird is a rare pleasure...  The birds that held and/or cackled got shot, and we have literally bred that out of them...

Turkeys that gobble early get pin-pointed by hunters, and get shot...  Birds that do not have a better chance of surviving and passing on their genes...  It only makes sense that quiet birds would live more to pass on their genes...

Get rid of hunting, and birds that gobble early have a better chance of attracting hens, and we would see it turn around.

I would vote the same as you, but hen to gobbler ratio makes a difference too. Hunting pressure may be in the mix too. I hunt 1,000 acres of controlled private land That I control all turkey hunting on and I make sure it gets very light pressure and I still see it there, but the hen to gobbler ratio is off the charts.

[randy6471]

  Yes I see it where I hunt in Pa, but in general there is much less gobbling at anytime, because we also have alot less turkeys now compared to 30-40 years ago. For us I think that there are several things that contribute to it....less birds, predators, adaptation to hunting pressure, some change in the weather and later opening of the season.

[aaron]

The fix to this is roosting the night before.  If you know where he is the night before it doesn't matter what time he hobbled in the morning.  You'll be sitting on him tight regardless

[GobbleNut]

I believe turkey densities,...that is the number of turkeys, both gobblers and hens,...plays a significant role in this.  As we have discussed, many areas have experienced declines in gobbler numbers.  Gobbling is an instinctive behavior used to both attract hens and challenge rival gobblers.  That instinctive behavior is also a "triggered" response,...that is, it is, to a degree, involuntary. 

In any given area, there are gobblers that are willing to gobble voluntarily due to that instinctive impulse,...and there are gobblers that will not gobble unless they are triggered.  Decreases in numbers of gobblers in an area eliminates a good deal of that triggering mechanism. 

Anybody that has hunted much in areas with good turkey densities has seen this in action.  The woods are quiet until one gobbler starts up,...and then, within a few minutes the woods are ringing with gobbles.  Conversely, many of us have probably been in places where there were so few gobblers that the only gobbling that occurred was that of the voluntary nature. 

In heavily hunted areas, that voluntary gobbling can be suppressed, which I believe accounts for the decrease and/or later-occurring gobbling activity.  Add that suppression to the fact that there are fewer gobblers around and we see the results that are being discussed here.

There are ways for hunters to adapt to all of that, but I will not get into that here.  It tends to bring a "triggered" response from a few folks.  (lots of smiley faces here)

[hotspur]

Heavy hunted areas they don't gobble untill dawn in my experience,these public gobblers in Louisiana don't gobble much and stay in the tree very late

[eggshell]

aaron, All you'll do trying to roost gobblers in my area is waste an evening you could have done something constructive. You'll occasionally hear one but it's not worth the investment. I like to get tight to,, but I play with the cards I'm dealt and this is where you apply your woodsmanship. I personally would prefer on public ground that a bird not gobble his butt off before shooting hours, it just attracts other hunters. Most of the time I'm already on the ground I want to be on even if he hasn't gobbled

[shaman]

Trends like this seem to come and go on my place.

I've got 200 acres in the Trans-Bluegrass of KY.  I've been hunting it for two decades.  Turkeys definately go through phases.

They didn't used to gobble year-round.  Then Mister Moto came to town.  That bird used to gobble from way before sunrise until sunset. He gobbled in every month of the year.  After a few years, the original Moto vanished, but he left behind min-Motos.

About 3 years ago, the whole Moto thing ended.  The bloodline petered out.  It came back this year. My guess is that the Sons of Moto moved off to another ridge and now the bloodline is reasserting itself.  You know a Moto, because he gobbles all morning and never shows the slightest interest in coming to a call.

Gobbling in the dark may be like that-- a genetic trait.  I've seen gobblers under the right conditions keep gobbling well past dark, but they tend to shut up after 10 PM.  Once in a blue moon they'll go off before first light, but it's been years around here since that happened.  What seems to bring it on for us is days of very hot dry weather.  I'd say we've had those conditions maybe once a decade or so.

[NCL]

Possibly this is also a regional phenomenon, here they usually start about 45 minutes before it starts getting light with more gobbling as it gets lighter with fly down when it is light enough to see the ground. Once on the ground it is rare to hear then gobble.

With that said this year seems to be very different.  I am surrounded by public and private ground and have usually started hearing gobbling by as early as January with them in full swing by now. In past years I could go on my deck and call a 1/2 hour before sunrise and have 3 or 4 gobbles in response. So far this year I have had no responses.

[strum]

I cant say what they did 10-12 years ago but in my area for the past 10-12 yrs I occasionally hear gobbles 30 mins or so before first light but most I hear will be triggered by the first crow. That first crow had kind of been my bench mark for expecting to hear a gobble.  I think they dont crow untill they can see well enough to fly.

[LaLongbeard]

It is definitely region specific. La Gobblers very and I mean very rarely gobble after flyup. Roosting in the evening is less than useless. Of course I'm sure someone here in La hears them gobble every day at 6pm sharp 365 days a year and they also come to crow calls in the dark lol. But other than fairytales roosting is a waste of time here.
    Now you can drive north for a day and it's almost like hunting another species.

[ThunderChickenHunter21]

Trends like this seem to come and go on my place.

I've got 200 acres in the Trans-Bluegrass of KY.  I've been hunting it for two decades.  Turkeys definately go through phases.

They didn't used to gobble year-round.  Then Mister Moto came to town.  That bird used to gobble from way before sunrise until sunset. He gobbled in every month of the year.  After a few years, the original Moto vanished, but he left behind min-Motos.

About 3 years ago, the whole Moto thing ended.  The bloodline petered out.  It came back this year. My guess is that the Sons of Moto moved off to another ridge and now the bloodline is reasserting itself.  You know a Moto, because he gobbles all morning and never shows the slightest interest in coming to a call.

Gobbling in the dark may be like that-- a genetic trait.  I've seen gobblers under the right conditions keep gobbling well past dark, but they tend to shut up after 10 PM.  Once in a blue moon they'll go off before first light, but it's been years around here since that happened.  What seems to bring it on for us is days of very hot dry weather.  I'd say we've had those conditions maybe once a decade or so.

I've had them gobble during deer season as well

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[hotspur]

I cant say what they did 10-12 years ago but in my area for the past 10-12 yrs I occasionally hear gobbles 30 mins or so before first light but most I hear will be triggered by the first crow. That first crow had kind of been my bench mark for expecting to hear a gobble.  I think they dont crow untill they can see well enough to fly.

I hunted a private land gobbler that gobbled before light, and gobbled at everything but that was an exception. Hunted a public gobbler that waited on a specific crow to call not just any crow, when that tom gobbles the crow went to him a And they would call back and forth until the hunters started moving in

[aaron]

aaron, All you'll do trying to roost gobblers in my area is waste an evening you could have done something constructive. You'll occasionally hear one but it's not worth the investment. I like to get tight to,, but I play with the cards I'm dealt and this is where you apply your woodsmanship. I personally would prefer on public ground that a bird not gobble his butt off before shooting hours, it just attracts other hunters. Most of the time I'm already on the ground I want to be on even if he hasn't gobbled

I hear ya eggshell.  I have hunted farms where I can count on one hand the number of evening gobbles I've heard over many years.  But I also have farms where they gobble their brains out at night regularly.  I have often tried to determine what the difference is.  Farms close in distance and similar population numbers. 

[1iagobblergetter]

I don't remember in all the years hunting them of hearing them gobble in the dark. Its right before daybreak or nothing where I hunt.
If I'm on my way in to set up and I hear them gobbling I overslept and the sun is coming up and song birds a singing.

[eggshell]

I can't remember what year it was but I got up early one morning to travel on a hunt. When we hunt neighboring Ky we'll often leave like 3:00 AM to hunt that morning before a stay,  it save a night in a motel. It was a very bright full moon and a gobbler was gobbling on the ridge by the house, I was amazed. It was at least 3 hours before daylight. Never heard any  that early again.