ksgobbler
5 year old buck +
Its a version of the Amish. They hauled everyone around in 3 stock trailers. Basically surrounded it then sent walkers through the middle.
Kansas goes to 1 spring bird
- Thread starter ksgobbler
- Start date
bossgobbler
Yearling... With promise
In southern Ohio I see many Cooper’s hawks move in during the late spring months and stay through the summer. We have good poult hatch numbers when the cold rains don’t claim them but then the hawks move in and take care of many of them. Two years ago we had 42 poults hatch and only 7 made it to adulthood.
About 5-6 years ago I made it a goal of mine to help the turkey population as mush as possible so I began creating nesting grounds and trapping coons and possums extremely heavy. In 3-4 years we trapped 150+ coons and another 50+ possums in an area no bigger than 50 yard diameter. Our poult hatch went through the roof after that! The results were amazing. We had 20-40 poults hatch each spring. Now the hawks have moved in and really hammered their success rate. It’s aggravating.
The wild turkey has so many obstacles to overcome. It boggles my mind that any wild turkeys make it!
Hawks, crows, eagles, snakes, possums, coons, skunks, coyotes, Fox, dogs, domestic cats, bobcats, hunters, disease, land and habitat decline as well as other deterrents to having a successful flock.
I fear that the population will someday become too low. I do everything I can to help. Some of the measures I’ve taken have undoubtedly helped. I’ll keep helping. It’s rewarding to see them flourish when they can.
But those darn hawks are nasty hunters. It was amazing to watch them pick off the poults one at a time. They’d hunt in groups and just wipe a hen clean in a matter of a few days. 42 down to 7 in a matter of weeks was depressing.
We need to do all we can to help the population. I know I will!
About 5-6 years ago I made it a goal of mine to help the turkey population as mush as possible so I began creating nesting grounds and trapping coons and possums extremely heavy. In 3-4 years we trapped 150+ coons and another 50+ possums in an area no bigger than 50 yard diameter. Our poult hatch went through the roof after that! The results were amazing. We had 20-40 poults hatch each spring. Now the hawks have moved in and really hammered their success rate. It’s aggravating.
The wild turkey has so many obstacles to overcome. It boggles my mind that any wild turkeys make it!
Hawks, crows, eagles, snakes, possums, coons, skunks, coyotes, Fox, dogs, domestic cats, bobcats, hunters, disease, land and habitat decline as well as other deterrents to having a successful flock.
I fear that the population will someday become too low. I do everything I can to help. Some of the measures I’ve taken have undoubtedly helped. I’ll keep helping. It’s rewarding to see them flourish when they can.
But those darn hawks are nasty hunters. It was amazing to watch them pick off the poults one at a time. They’d hunt in groups and just wipe a hen clean in a matter of a few days. 42 down to 7 in a matter of weeks was depressing.
We need to do all we can to help the population. I know I will!
around my place - to help with deer and turkey recruitment - it is imperative that coyotes be killed in the spring - especially when female coyotes have pups. I can catch coyotes in april - June and I dont start seeing coyotes in game cams again until late summer. If I kill coyotes in winter - it seems like it does nothing to the population
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
This video says a lot about predator/prey relationships. It's pretty short to watch all of it, but if you want to skip straight to about the 3 minute mark he talks specifically about coyote scat studies and what they are eating. I find it insightful, but this is just one study and it's in TX so it can't be considered for all parts of the country.
I would not expect a coyote to be a serious quail predator - other than maybe during nesting season. I would expect coons, snakes, skunks, and crows to be serious nest predators. But, the study I posted above proved - at least in SW Kansas - coyotes and bobcats were killing about half the adult gobblers every year. That is a serious turkey predator.
Iowa_Dave
5 year old buck +
I am very interested to read through this thread, as my farm used to be a turkey mecca. Now...not so much. There are spring mornings where just one or two gobblers can be heard, sometimes none. 10+ years ago...there were many days where you truly could not count all of the gobblers gobbling, but there were dozens almost every day sounding off.
I have long suspected bobcats, as the decline of the turkey population is closely aligned with the rise of bobcat sightings on our place AND...it was about 10 years ago that we began to find adult turkey carcasses. More in the winter, but some at all times of the year. Could it be a disease and then some lucky scavenger/predator comes along and finds a free meal? Sure. But in all cases the turkey carcass was picked clean and was fairly fresh. In addition to our finds, neighbors reported the same thing...so something was going on.
Now...there is probably about 10% of the turks from days gone by. I would like to know what is up so concrete steps can be taken to restore the population. I miss having plenty of turks around.
Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
As I stated in an above post. Sometimes steps you need to take are frowned upon by the legal system so there is only so much that can legally be done. That is where the ethics/moral line is toe’d. The idea of value on wildlife is an interesting one. Are turkeys more valuable than a hawk, quail? Maybe. Maybe not. It seems the idea of balance is nice but the practice is impossible. Turkeys and quail are declining but coons, coyotes, birds of prey are doing just fine.
ksgobbler
5 year old buck +
I do have an email in to the furbearer biologist/head of the KWDPT asking if there has been any discussion about loosening the trapping season on raccoons. Currently we have to quit this month. I'd like to see it be open season similar to what it is on coyotes. Waiting on a response.
I did have a bird of prey (believe it was a sharp shinned hawk) snare a sparrow the dogs kicked up the other day walking through a patch of foxtail on my property. #1 thing the quail biologist told me is not to give birds of prey a perch, so I have been getting rid of trees while unleashing the brushy cover.
I did have a bird of prey (believe it was a sharp shinned hawk) snare a sparrow the dogs kicked up the other day walking through a patch of foxtail on my property. #1 thing the quail biologist told me is not to give birds of prey a perch, so I have been getting rid of trees while unleashing the brushy cover.
ksgobbler
5 year old buck +
That's if you have access to the den tree. Also if they don't show up in 5 min they ain't coming. But yes its a blast. I've seen them come so fast my cousin had to kick it.
Arkansas finally saw the light and now offers a free predator control permit - you can only use it on private land. It allows year round trapping or hunting of most common predators. Something that makes predators even worse in the south is most fur buyers wont even buy southern fur anymore - so other than a few recreational trappers - coons and coyotes are barely being trapped in the winter.
swat1018
5 year old buck +
Not anywhere I've hunted or owned. When I was a kid in the 80s we had to be at a woods before dark if we wanted to be first one in with the coon dogs. You would be treed, and someone else would be treed in the next patch over. You can hunt all season now and never hear another dog treed. Fur buyers won't even buy most coons. When I see poults there might be 1-2, some years I don't see a poult on my one place. Buddy a county over was in same boat, started trapping coons and possums and he has had tons of poults last couple years, and good hunting. Tough to trap when you're 6 hours away.
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
swat1018 is dead on for where I live with his description of coon hunting back then versus now. Coon hunting is all but gone here. Back then coons were so scarce that it could sometimes be hard to find one. Now, the woods are crawling alive with them.
I also want to comment on the video that Catscratch posted. That guy is concerned about quail instead of deer, but we can still learn something important from what he was saying. He isn't concerned about coyotes, because he is interested in quail, but we are concerned about coyotes because of fawns. Therefore we should be killing them - but, we should also be taking out skunks, coons and other predators down on the food chain. This will balance us taking out the coyotes. Then we will be helping not only the deer but also the other game species we are interested in.
Liberals in the government would like to replace human hunters with animal predators. I'm not ready to let that happen.
I also want to comment on the video that Catscratch posted. That guy is concerned about quail instead of deer, but we can still learn something important from what he was saying. He isn't concerned about coyotes, because he is interested in quail, but we are concerned about coyotes because of fawns. Therefore we should be killing them - but, we should also be taking out skunks, coons and other predators down on the food chain. This will balance us taking out the coyotes. Then we will be helping not only the deer but also the other game species we are interested in.
Liberals in the government would like to replace human hunters with animal predators. I'm not ready to let that happen.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
We still have good turkey numbers here but populations fluctuate from year to year. The biggest factor is spring weather and there is nothing we can do about that. When we get cold damp weather that lasts for more than a day or two after chicks hatch, they are very susceptible to viruses. Predators can be somewhat of an issue but the relationship is complex. We can't control most avian predators these days, but we can manipulate habitat to provide good overhead cover adjacent to bugging/brooding ground and place them proximate to good nesting cover. Coyotes are kind of interesting. Some studies show that they may actually benefit turkey populations slightly. Yes, they are turkey predators, but the thinking is that their impact on other nest predators like skunks, coons, and the like may be greater than their predation impact on turkey yielding a net positive. When coyotes began using our farm on a regular basis, it had a distinct impact on deer through fawn predation but no noticeable impact on our turkey populations.
At a state level, the best controls we have are fall seasons. Reducing spring gobbler harvest has little impact on populations unless they get very, vary low. That may be where you are in Kansas, I don't know. Typically, when populations drop, a reduction in the number of gobblers you can shoot in the spring is more of a question of how to allocate fairly between hunters.
Our populations markedly increase when the biologists reset the fall seasons. The key here was deconflicting fall turkey and deer seasons. We found that many hens were opportunistically harvested by deer hunters and the large number of deer hunters in the woods increased the chances of broken up flocks thus making the birds more vulnerable. Season length has an impact, but so does where the season is placed relative to other seasons. By moving our fall gobbler season out of deer firearm season we were able to increase populations. More hens made it to the spring. They continued to adjust the fall season to string a balance between harvest numbers and hunting opportunities. We now have many more days of fall turkey hunting that we did but the season is disjointed.
We get 3 birds total per year regardless of sex. One tag is good in the spring only which makes it functionally a spring gobbler tag. The other two tags are good spring or fall making them functionally either sex tags. That is pretty flexible and works well with our populations.
I'm not sure what the situation is in Kansas, but if the biologists and NWTF are lining up, I'd be reluctant to go different direction.
Thanks,
Jack
At a state level, the best controls we have are fall seasons. Reducing spring gobbler harvest has little impact on populations unless they get very, vary low. That may be where you are in Kansas, I don't know. Typically, when populations drop, a reduction in the number of gobblers you can shoot in the spring is more of a question of how to allocate fairly between hunters.
Our populations markedly increase when the biologists reset the fall seasons. The key here was deconflicting fall turkey and deer seasons. We found that many hens were opportunistically harvested by deer hunters and the large number of deer hunters in the woods increased the chances of broken up flocks thus making the birds more vulnerable. Season length has an impact, but so does where the season is placed relative to other seasons. By moving our fall gobbler season out of deer firearm season we were able to increase populations. More hens made it to the spring. They continued to adjust the fall season to string a balance between harvest numbers and hunting opportunities. We now have many more days of fall turkey hunting that we did but the season is disjointed.
We get 3 birds total per year regardless of sex. One tag is good in the spring only which makes it functionally a spring gobbler tag. The other two tags are good spring or fall making them functionally either sex tags. That is pretty flexible and works well with our populations.
I'm not sure what the situation is in Kansas, but if the biologists and NWTF are lining up, I'd be reluctant to go different direction.
Thanks,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
It may take a while to see the effects. Hen survival is a secondary driver and has less impact than poult survival with cool wet weather during the first few weeks of a poults life. Depending on spring weather, it may take a number of years for increased hen survival to contribute to rebuilding populations.
Closed fall season six years ago. I dont think there are going to be any positive affects
ksgobbler
5 year old buck +
Maybe its just poor timing, but our declind started 13 years ago when we liberalized seasons. It used to run roughly April 15 to may 15th. Then we added youth and archery to the beginning starting April 1. After that the tourism department added 2 weeks to run it to May 31. We expanded fall hunting and gave the option to harvest 6 turkeys per year 2 in the spring and 4 in the fall. You could harrass turkeys for 6 months out of the year with hunting seasons.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
It is also kind of hard to measure the impact. Turkey populations have been on a general decline with and uneven distribution with some states experiences more decline than others. It may be hard to say if the closing your fall season has slowed and continuing decline. As I say, fall harvest of hens has an impact but is not a primary driver like poult survival.
One more consideration might be the normal oscillation of an introduced species. Turkey populations across the US were low and zero in many areas before the restoration efforts. The introduction may act like an invasive species. If they fit into the nature-scape well, populations can explode and areas expand fast. It may take generations before they become a major food source for predators. Often you see a burgeoning population crest and fall precipitously and hen rebound and oscillate until it achieve a fairly steady-state with the environment.
Nothing is static and nature is always in flux. There are things we can do to favor one species over others to some extent and hunting regs are only part of the equation. The best we can do locally is to continue to consider wild turkey as we manage. Food is rarely a limiting factor. I focus most of my efforts on poult survival. There are lots of other threads on this forum with my management techniques for turkey, but regardless of what I do, I can't overcome spring weather.
Thanks,
Jack
