megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
The magic number is 2.2 poults per hen surviving until August to maintain population. Anything less than that, and the population is declining.
3 bird limit???
- Thread starter Bone Collector
- Start date
Was watching a doc about turkey restoration and they said it was 51 days of danger from the time the first egg hits the nest till the poult can fly to a limb at night.
I totally get that and by all means leave season open in your area. As our area the turkeys are ahead of most of the state.
Where are you located. It's terrible where I live. Hardin County.
Claiborne where tn,ky and va come together
Rakkin6
Well-Known Member
Me personally I am for a two bird limit but I am neutral in decoys. I do use them from time to time depending on the area I get on Fort Campbell. Decoys are not really a deal breaker for me either way. Kind of look at them like I do doe in heat, grunt tubes etc.
TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
However, it's 32% of a lot more nests!
End result is dramatically higher!
drawforce
Well-Known Member
My area has a bumper crop this year in west Tn.
Southern Sportsman
Well-Known Member
32% nest success vs. 22% nest success is a 45% improvement.
I don't know the magic number for nest success rate (as mega points out, poults per hen is the main parameter they look at, but PPH is usually estimated after everything hatches and reaches a couple weeks old. So it is directly influenced by nesting rate, nest success, poult survival rate, etc.). However, the thesis paper that everyone is discussing notes that the nest success rate seen in the study counties (or more accurately, the success rate pre-delay, which was around .25) "were similar to the estimates from other declining populations in the Southeast." He cites three other studies of declining populations as examples — .26 (GA), .24 (SC), and .24 (LA).
I may be off, but a 32% nest success rate seems decent/reasonable. Roughly 1/3 of the nests laid successfully producing poults. Out of 1000 nests, 22% success rate means 220 produce a poult. 32% = 320 producing poults. Although the nest only has to produce 1 poult to count as "successful," if the nest isn't destroyed, most produce a handful to a dozen. So you're talking about a difference of several hundred, maybe just under 1000, more baby turkeys hatching per 1000 nests laid. I don't know how big an area would need to be to realistically house 1000 nests. Maybe @megalomaniac knows. But on a county-wide (much less statewide) scale, nest success of 32% vs. 22% seems like a pretty big deal.
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I remember sneaking up a hill overlooking the refuge and peeking into that big sloping field about 2006. I was dumbfounded at the turkeys there, it was like what massive herds of buffalo must have looked like, there was probably 150 - 200 turkeys scratching and feeding along. I usta see big bunches daily at the same places, almost without fail, now, they are scarce or gone.
had a similar experience around the same year. Place I got access to had a 200 acre cut field at the bottom of a ridge on the river. Went the week before season to see if there were any birds and I kid you not that 200 acre field you could barely see any green spots there was so many there. I had a picture of it I was so shocked (wish I could find it). I have never seen anything like it before.
I always do wonder though, what caused the HUGE boom and then the sudden decline in such a short span. We talk habitat loss ect but it wasnt dramatic in a lot of areas the following 5-10 year window (as much as it has been in the more recent 5 year span). I get natural biology meaning more turkeys = more predators. At the time there wasnt much talk about turkeys and population, seems it just boomed in a short time period. Granted some of the more "modern" hunting strategies where not so common back then.
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
No idea on how many acres of excellent habitat it takes to hold 1000 nests, but for sure, hens don't like to nest close to one another.
As far as 'nest success', I'm not sure if they are defining it as an actual nest hatched (successful and complete incubation resulting in a live poult). If so, the VAST majority of nests that actually do hatch produce 10+ poults out of the clutch. So a small increase in successful nests results in a dramatic increase in number of day old poults. Problem is... the vast majority of those day old poults don't make it till August.
Stlbaseball1
Well-Known Member
Muddyboots and knighrider are a perfect example of why we should have regional units for TN. SW corner should start first of April run 30 days. NE corner should start mid April and run 30 days. Rest of state could be somewhere in between depending on the number of regions decided. I believe for the betterment of turkeys in all of TN you start with a statewide limit of 2 for all regions. Evaluate after a few years, but remember if different units in TN have different limits, the higher limit units will get bombarded by the lower limit units. This is just my .02 cents and I'm not a very smart guy.
Southern Sportsman
Well-Known Member
That is how nest survival is defined, but he actually extrapolated the numbers by raising the "daily nest survival"rate (.953) to the 28th power to account for the 28 day incubation period.
No doubt a majority of those poults will die before August from a million different causes. But you have to start somewhere. And I hope everyone will agree that's it's better to start with more turkeys before the attrition factors take their toll. And by all means, as individuals we should keep doing what we can to reduce attrition (trapping, habitat improvements, etc.). Doing what we can to hatch more poults and doing what we can to help those poults survive to adulthood are not mutually exclusive.
I'm happy for you having some birds to play with! But, in reality, that picture is a big nothing burger compared to what it used to be before the agency set limits with $$$ signs in their eyes instead of flock sustainability. A picture like yours would have had a 100+ birds from several of the middle TN counties before they increased the season length and bag limits.
One of the "interesting" things about the season/bag limit discussions has been that no one, including the agency, has been able to produce any data that shows moving it later and reducing the bag limit HURTS the turkey population in ANY way.
Thus, it becomes the issue of whining hunters and $$$$$.
Thus, it becomes the issue of whining hunters and $$$$$.
drawforce
Well-Known Member
When I took that pic there were 150 in the field in different spots
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
Absolutely! the more of everything (hens, nests, eggs, poults, and ultimately if everything works out favorably, juvies) the better!
Hens themselves are extremely vulnerable while setting (incubating) for 28 days, as are their nests. The poults get picked off by everything, but especially raptors. I've heard before it takes between 100-200 eggs to produce just one single adult gobbler.
Awesome!! Sounds like you have some birds to play with. Hope you have a great and safe season!
Southern Sportsman
Well-Known Member
The higher limit units will get SOME increased pressure, for sure. But as has been pointed out a bunch of times, a very small percentage kill more than 2 birds anyway. The relatively small number of accomplished hunters who kill two in their home region with time to spare will look to travel to the higher limit units for an extra bird (or two, if they were to bump some of middle TN up to 4 birds and keep others at 2). But if the season dates are uniform, I don't think it would be enough of an increase to stress about. Now if they start the season earlier in one unit, then yeah, there will be a big influx of hunters from other units whenever the earliest date kicks off.
