No. I didn't even bring a gun or buy a license this year. I've got a bunch of work to do. I do love turkey hunting, but I don’t have enough to where I'd feel good about hunting them right now.
Being from AR, where we kill 9000 turkeys a year, looking at KY where they kill 30,000 or more, makes KY look like the holy grail of turkey hunting. Are turkeys just distributed unevenly across the state - with pockets that have turkeys and pockets that dont - or are their whole regions with a lot more turkeys than other regions?
Where I live, we have had a few turkey for the last four of five years - but 20 miles away, they have none. We are more timber and cattle and they are mainly just cattle and I think that probably explains the difference in my area. Our number one county for harvest in the state is big commercial timberland - a lot of Weyerhaeuser - I think that combination of clearcuts and pine plantation is decent ground for turkeys - with a high percentage of land in that type of habitat.
Turkeys are just so much more difficult to manage than deer - I believe them to be so much more environment condition influenced. When I started hunting turkeys in 1980 in Western AR, we had quite a few turkeys but the rest of the state did not and that is where they trapped most of the turkeys from for relocation purposes. We had a three turkey limit in the spring and a three turkey limit in the fall, and for ten years, I was usually done the first week of season spring and fall. I heard 16 different gobbler one morning in the mid 1980’s. I hunted mostly wilderness areas on NF - mixed pine/hardwood
By the mid 1990’s - they were doing a five year turkey study in that area of the state to determine what had happened to the turkeys. It was not habitat, because where I was hunting was old growth timber in wilderness areas with no silvicultural treatments.
By the early 2000’s, we were swimming in turkeys again. My son, my daughter, and I all killed turkeys one morning - where six years before, I did not hear a turkey gobble an entire season.
It reminds me of the last couple of years now that turkeys have increased in my local area again. It is definitely not because of management practices specifically dedicated towards turkeys. We have had very poor nesting weather the last few years, and extended summer droughts. The cattlemen plant fescue like it is going out of style and spray truckloads of 24d to keep any forbs killed out.
I had two broods using my place this last winter and a bunch of five jakes. I havent seen a jake in 10 years.
I wish someone would do a study why does a place have turkeys instead of why are they declining. I dont mean a well managed area - but these run of the mill areas that have turkeys - like the one I live in.
I also did not hunt my turkeys when they were few and far between. I would drive almost two hours to NF to hunt. And almost every year a local would tell me something like “yeah, we heard a turkey down near your place and got permission to hunt and killed it - havent heard a turkey in these parts in years”. No kidding - and then you go kill it and wonder why you havent heard one in years.
