GreeneGriz
Well-Known Member
Must be all the chicken litter their spreading up on those mountains. (Sorry, had to say it).Called in a gobbling Longbeard on South Cherokee this morning. Had him within 30 yards. All I had to do was pull the trigger. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm done. I won and had him dead to rights. And I'm proud of that! Our turkeys are going the way of the grouse and quail and I'm not killing anymore until the population rebounds. I've hunted every weekend since it opened and that's the only bird I've Heard up there. Seen some sign but nothing like compared in years past.
Might possibly plan a hunt next year in another part of the country that still has turkeys to hunt.
A family friend has a farm in western Polk county and says his turkey population seems to ebb and flow from year to year. He thinks it has to do with the wet or dry spring we have during hatches.
hens are taken and allowed in the fall in many counties. Males don't reproduce. Shocker, I know.To say, "taking a gobbler has no effect on the population at all" is a bold statement. Considering the bag limit is for male turkeys only, then why does TWRA even impose limits and modify seasons if how many males are taken (and when) has no impact on the turkey population? The below statements are copied and pasted from turkeymanagement.com. No doubt the focus should be on the survival rate of the hens and their offspring, but clearly the harvest rate of gobblers has some impact.
Turkey harvest rates can vary depending upon the timing of the season. Obviously, if the season starts after the peak of the breeding season then harvest rates will be low. On the other hand, if the spring season "captures" the peak of the breeding season, gobbler harvest will increase. Regardless of success rates, no more than 20% of the gobbler population should be harvested each year.
In summary, there is a lot of year-to-year variation in wild turkey populations due to the effect of weather and other factors on productivity and survival. The best way to cope with these changes is to continually change season length and bag limit based on changes in size of turkey populations. Often times, this is not feasible at a state or agency level, but can be done on your property if you choose to do so. It's not a bad idea to harvest turkeys, just make sure the population can handle the losses.