Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
Absolutely. I’d chip in for one to use locally to me
Wild Turkey population is tanking across most of its range
- Thread starter Howboutthemdawgs
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I am not sure it wouldnt be more difficult to stop baiting than catch every coon in the woods. We are still allowed to bait in the cwd areas. As much as I would like to see baiting stopped - there are 100,000’s of thousands of acres here where baiting has always been illegal - and the turkey population crashed and has not come back. I have a piece of property that backs up to a 27,000 acre NWR that has never allowed baiting. 20 years ago, i used to have difficulty planting wheat because the turkeys would come out of the refuge and eat it. I have not got a turkey picture over there in ten years. There are far more turkeys on my home property with 15 adjacent landowners, seven of whom bait. The refuge allows a quota of fifty permits for a two day gun turkey hunt, and a two day youth season - and average killing one turkey per year. 15 years ago, I heard 12 turkeys there one morning, scouting before season. They do allow bow hunting for turkeys after the first two days. A few years ago, I went over there bow hunting for turkeys and never heard one. I dont know of anyone else who has tried bowhunting there. It is almost 100% wooded bottomland and used to be covered with turkeys.
Very limited turkey hunting, very limited harvest, no baiting, no turkeys. But that said, I wish they would stop baiting here, because of my jealous side - I spend a ton of money defensive baiting. I could quit that because I have 40 acres of food plots. Quite a few of my neighbors own five or ten acres. Some of them might never kill a deer if they couldnt bait - and most of them need the meat. Definitely a first world issue.
But back to the issue of baiting and turkeys - in our state, there is a LOT of land where baiting is not allowed and there is no appreciable difference between the land that has a corn feeder every 40 acres and the 100,000’s of thousands of acres where baiting is not allowed. And yes, I have read a number of studies that show nest predation is higher the closer the nest is to a supplemental feed source.
I still think the habitat has to be there or it does very little good to stop baiting by itself. As you might imagine, a 27,000 acre property in the river bottoms, in the south, is infested with coons, possums, and coyotes. I dont see how a hen turkey is going to overcome.
The problem with trapping; is not enough people do it. The problem with habitat, not enough people do it. Most of my neighbors work actively to destroy habitat. They actively plant fescue and spray broadleaves. I dont know one single person out of all these rural landowners I know who has set a trap with lethal intent in the last ten years.
Poor habitat, and extremely high predator density, and baiting as a way of life. It is the perfect storm for turkeys - yet I sit here typing this and listening to two turkeys off my back deck. Not many folks around me can say that.
Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
So Louisiana has more than doubled its annual harvest in 24 and 25 from 2013-2106. That’s either a great success story or a travesty. I don’t know enough to understand what happened there
BenA
5 year old buck +
I don't think it's much of a success story unless there was a MAJOR die off before mandatory harvest reporting. In one season during the early 2000's I killed 2 turkeys in one of those parishes that is only showing 9 killed this year. Either the numbers are WAY off, or we almost had a complete collapse of the population pre 2009 and it's rebounding.
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
Seems to me that a disease went through the turkey population and caused a crash almost nation wide. Since then populations have been coming back... but due to predators, poor habitat, and weather it's slow.
Was LA doing any restocking efforts during that time - or were turkeys moving into previously unoccupied territory? In AR, we killed right at 11,500 this year - Which is our highest harvest in about ten years.
But if you look at the preceding climb before peak harvest in 2002 - that was largely a result of population expanding into previously unoccupied ground. The ouachita mountains of western AR had turkeys when I started hunting there in 1980 - and that is where a lot of the birds were trapped for restocking efforts. In the mid 90’s - the graph shows a meteoric rise in harvest - yet in the used to be turkey stronghold of the Ouachita Mts - there was an ongoing turkey study to determine why the turkeys were declining
It should also be noted that it is difficult to compare the numbers at face value. In the first half of the graph, season opened Apr 1 and ran into the first half of May. Starting about 15 years ago, season started opening around Apr 20 - we lost almost three weeks of season. Limit used to be three - now two. Jakes used to be legal - now only youth may kill one jake - a lot of regulations designed to reduce harvest
But definitely an increase in turkeys the last few years - not nearly like 20 years ago, but a lot more than five or six years ago. Where I used to hunt in the 1980’s - on an 80,000 acre wma - where they have been killing 9 or 10 turkeys a year over the last 10 years - I heard 16 different turkeys one morning in 1985. They used to check more turkeys the first morning on that wma than they now kill all year
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BenA
5 year old buck +
When I hunted in Avoyelles parish during the early 2000's, which according to last year's harvest statistics only had 9 kills, turkeys were abundant there. More than that were killed in a 30,000 acre area opening weekend. I can remember hearing that many some mornings. I don't know what happened, but something drastic must have.
i bought my land in 2003. Some mornings I could hear four or five turkeys off my back deck. At that time, my land was a weekend visit - I lived forty miles away and there were more turkeys in that location so I hunted there. By 2010, there were no turkeys anywhere near my land. I moved full time to my land in 2011. I did not hear a turkey again until 2019. In this local area, people who live three or four miles away see no turkeys. At our peak in 2002 - pretty much everywhere had at least a few turkeys. Now they are in localized pockets
I own 62 acres that adjoins a 27,000 acre nwr. In 2005, I would have to replant my food plots because the turkeys would eat the wheat. 15 years ago - while scouting - listening and moving, you might hear 10 or 12 on that nwr. They are gone now - there has not been one checked in a couple years.