Harvest Numbers 2006-2018

Even though 2018 season hasn't finished, I thought it would be interesting to go back and review things as so many has stated there has been a huge drop in harvest numbers. A lot of factors play into the harvest numbers. Weather has been a huge impact this year. Between cold, snow, rain and high winds in my part of the state, it's really effected the hunts. I've worn late season deer hunting clothes on most of my hunts this year. Upper E TN has experience a wet spring the past 2 years. I've seen evidence of little to no poults on my cams. Biggest group I got on my 4 TN farms last year was 2 hens w/5 poults in July. Had similar reports through out the area from friends and farmers seeing little to none through summer. I've seen some decline in birds around my house over the past 2 years. Went from 4 gobblers in 2016, 2 in 2017 to 0 in 2018.

Below graph shows the reported upper 10 East TN harvest numbers from 2006 through May 3, 2018. Seems there was big drop in numbers starting in 2006 with a slow rebound in 2008 then a slight drop in 2011. The over all trend line is pretty flat. Based on the data, it's hard to be screaming we have problems with harvest. Do I think we do have issues and need to do something now, YES I do. Based on the actually data, what is everyone's thoughts???

Shooter77":1njsr8u1 said:

Weather has been a huge impact this year. Between cold, snow, rain and high winds in my part of the state, it's really effected the hunts. I've work late season deer hunting clothes on most of my hunts this year.

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This is the biggest problem this year I think. It is hard to gauge this year against other years, due to the crazy weather we have had. I know that some folks have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to turkeys on the places they hunt, and if that is the case, the weather probably didn't effect them too badly. The rest of us, though it has torpedoed our seasons in some cases.

Shooter77":1njsr8u1 said:

Upper E TN has experience a wet spring the past 2 years. I've seen evidence of little to no poults on my cams.

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I haven't seen any in 5 years around me. My brother and I saw 5 at his place last summer, so that was good, but those were the first i had seen in years.

Shooter77":1njsr8u1 said:

Below graph shows the reported upper 10 East TN harvest numbers from 2006 through May 3, 2018. Seems there was big drop in numbers starting in 2006 with a slow rebound in 2008 then a slight drop in 2011. The over all trend line is pretty flat. Based on the data, it's hard to be screaming we have problems with harvest. Do I think we do have issues and need to do something now, YES I do. Based on the actually data, what is everyone's thoughts???

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I believe there is something wrong, but I don't know what to do about it. One argument that comes to mind for the camp that wants to lower limits is, if we know the population is not reproducing well, then shooting the same # turkeys every year eventually will take its toll. Its kinda like an over stocked pond. At first catching and keeping a bunch of fish is great, but then if there is no spawn and no restocking, eventually the pond gets fished out. Land animals are no different.

On my farm birds only use it in spring and summer. I have lived there 6 turkey seasons. I do have several hens that nest around the front of the farm where my house is. Until 2 years ago, the most poults i had seen was 6 with 3 hens. 2 years ago i started trapping nest predators, got right at 50. Last summer had over 20 poults that i got to watch grow all summer. I did find 1-2 eggs that had been busted as well. Then i saw one group of poults that had to of been born around early september. Of course, in the fall they moved off again. We will see how this year goes.


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Bone Collector":1ege3vld said:

I believe there is something wrong, but I don't know what to do about it. One argument that comes to mind for the camp that wants to lower limits is, if we know the population is not reproducing well, then shooting the same # turkeys every year eventually will take its toll. Its kinda like an over stocked pond. At first catching and keeping a bunch of fish is great, but then if there is no spawn and no restocking, eventually the pond gets fished out. Land animals are no different.

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I agree with this statement! Probably I see, we are still killing about the same numbers for the past 10 years. you would think that pond would be empty by now? I did have a farm in spring of 2016 that had a flock of 21 jakes. Spring of 2017, I had 7 gobblers on this 82 acres about all season. Owner sold the Farm last fall, so no clue what it's like this year.

One major missing factor is the number of hunters each year.

You are also not accounting for the change in limits in this data.

Goodtimekiller":1vbg079w said:

On my farm birds only use it in spring and summer. I have lived there 6 turkey seasons. I do have several hens that nest around the front of the farm where my house is. Until 2 years ago, the most poults i had seen was 6 with 3 hens. 2 years ago i started trapping nest predators, got right at 50. Last summer had over 20 poults that i got to watch grow all summer. I did find 1-2 eggs that had been busted as well. Then i saw one group of poults that had to of been born around early september. Of course, in the fall they moved off again. We will see how this year goes.


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I think that's one of the biggest factors people aren't talking about. Lack of good habit and the explosion of nest predators. I've watch Grant Woods "Growing Deer" and that's one of the biggest things he does is trap predators. I'm sure many factors he's done has improved his population, but it seems he talks a lot about how big it's been to help his birds.

bloodtrailing":2c5w1nur said:

One major missing factor is the number of hunters each year.

You are also not accounting for the change in limits in this data.

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You stole my thoughts. I'd be willing to wager my left nut that there's double the hunters in that time frame. Also strutters and reaping didn't come around until about 2012 I believe which also has to be factored.

Increasing the spring limit from 3 to 4 was a 33% increase in opportunity as well as the addition of the fall season that makes an increasing harvest look like overall population health which it is not.

What year did they add the fall season and increase the limit in spring?

bloodtrailing":9s3ax7u3 said:

One major missing factor is the number of hunters each year.

You are also not accounting for the change in limits in this data.

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Yea someone else could tell me when the limits changed and when fall was put into place. Also when the change from county to county changed in the fall season we could plot that.

If you read the reports, the number of hunters is going down not up. Not sure how you could get the data of the number of just "turkey hunters" there actually are since the big game license has deer, bear & turkey on it. I know a lot of guys that just deer hunt cause spring is fishing time. Here is the number of licenses sold in TN as reported to the US Fish & Wildlife. https://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/subpages/l ... unting.htm

bloodtrailing":xygbihxm said:

Increasing the spring limit from 3 to 4 was a 33% increase in opportunity as well as the addition of the fall season that makes an increasing harvest look like overall population health which it is not.

What year did they add the fall season and increase the limit in spring?

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Not disagreeing with you that 4 bird limit can be a issue. Very few people actually get 4 birds. During the recent meeting the turkey biologist had a pie chart up. I know she said only 6 people actually got 5 birds (WMA bonus bird). the number of hunters with 4 birds was very low.

Before it's gets to wild, I just want to say, I didn't start the thread saying there is or isn't a problem with the population right now. I want to have real numbers discussion about issues, not oh "I FEEL" or "I THINK" it's this way. I just come from a world where I get managers, supervisors or operators telling me 25-70% of the product they get from my department is junk all the time. When I look at the ACTUAL DATA, there might be 1 day out of the year that they received 30-50% scrap because of a process/equipment issue. most of the time it's 1-3% that falls with in the acceptable level base on the number of quality checks performed by my operators. I just wanted us to look at things we have scientific data on and try to fix the issue. Again as I said in my first post, I DO BELIEVE THERE IS A PROBLEM, just not sure how bad it is. I want to make sure we turn things around but some times the land can only carry so many. Maybe relocation of birds from over populated areas to areas that are low and improving the habitat need to be looked at.

You need the right data and harvest results is not it. Brood surveys and population surveys is what you need. Check out Missouri's info for examples.


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bloodtrailing":16vn86ed said:

You need the right data and harvest results is not it. Brood surveys and population surveys is what you need. Check out Missouri's info for examples.


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Yes I agree! Both are the best representation of the population. VA puts out a report every year that is from surveys that hunters do, along with reports on brood surveys and how well the hatch had been the previous year. It's been usually pretty accurate over the past 20 years.

So.. the lowest harvest in 10 years despite more hunters and more effective killing methods. Must be the weather.

megalomaniac":3fnuobir said:

So.. the lowest harvest in 10 years despite more hunters and more effective killing methods. Must be the weather.

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All reports indicate fewer hunters and i suspect these "more effective killing methods" must not be as effective as all of those who have not tried them say they are


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Goodtimekiller":se9o482v said:

megalomaniac":se9o482v said:

So.. the lowest harvest in 10 years despite more hunters and more effective killing methods. Must be the weather.

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All reports indicate fewer hunters and i suspect these "more effective killing methods" must not be as effective as all of those who have not tried them say they are


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Any one who says there are less hunters is eithe naive or not being honest. There's more turkey hunters than ever before. It doesn't take long to look around and notice that.

There are more hunters with more tactics that make killing birds much easier that's a fact and there's really no disputing it.

Setterman":1dgdwtfe said:

Goodtimekiller":1dgdwtfe said:

megalomaniac":1dgdwtfe said:

So.. the lowest harvest in 10 years despite more hunters and more effective killing methods. Must be the weather.

Click to expand...

All reports indicate fewer hunters and i suspect these "more effective killing methods" must not be as effective as all of those who have not tried them say they are


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Click to expand...

Any one who says there are less hunters is eithe naive or not being honest. There's more turkey hunters than ever before. It doesn't take long to look around and notice that.

There are more hunters with more tactics that make killing birds much easier that's a fact and there's really no disputing it.

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All reports show fewer hunters, thats a fact, not my opinion i'm posting. And even the harvest numbers disagree with it. If there are more hunters using more effective means the harvest would have no option but to increase. You should do more research before posting random untruths. By the way i saw 6 strutters, 10-12 jakes and countless hens on my way to work this morning.


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Well, it IS possible we are starting to lose hunters. My main farm that no longer has any birds no longer has any hunters around. Used to be 7 or 8 other hunters within a 1.5 mile radius of that place. Always heard at least 2 shots on a weekend day, sometimes 5 or 6 on neighboring properties. Don't know if those guys quit hunting altogether since the birds are gone, but I bet not... I suspect they are still hunting, just somewhere else like me. Don't think I've ever met a turkey hunter who was hooked then quit. Just too addictive.

Just because you see lots more videos today than ever before on facebook of people killing turkeys does not mean there are more hunters. And if you think the videos are the only times they are hunting, that's probably wrong too. Why would they post unsuccessful hunts?


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megalomaniac":2w55io0v said:

So.. the lowest harvest in 10 years despite more hunters and more effective killing methods. Must be the weather.

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:rotf: