Boll Weevil":1aqid4hf said:
AT Hiker":1aqid4hf said:
My fear is everyone else will do this and lock down on the same areas.
Foot traffic will increase as the season approaches and we know that turkeys aren't very tolerant of human intrusion. What you might find is the places you've scouted that held 0 turkeys suddenly have a few birds after they've been run out of other areas.
Most turkeys are still in huge winter flocks, some of which are several miles from where many these birds spent last spring, summer, and early fall.
And their winter range can be
VERY small compared to other times of year.
They will naturally begin dispersing in early spring, and this may get sped up a bit by "scouters" like AT Hiker.
I've often seen large areas void of turkey during December/January, yet have plenty of birds move in by mid-April.
Also, someone scouting can easily miss a large winter flock, simply because they may be staying just beyond that ridge you didn't top, mostly holding in the next valley.
Personally, I almost hope I have no turkeys this time of year in some key hunting areas of the past.
Lots of turkeys now can mean no turkeys in mid-April and later.
I'm talking about large acreage areas (multiple square miles) of contiguous habitat,
not small farms (with more fields than woods) surrounded and interspersed with highways and subdivisions.
Most of TN's turkey hunters may be hunting more an "urban" bird than a "wilderness" bird,
like we have at LBL, Catoosa WMA, and the Cherokee National Forest.
