Lukikus2
Senior Member
We didn't have turkeys in my neck of the woods, or yotes. Had one pack of red wolfs. Countywide. The NTF released birds we weren't able to hunt until they became sustainable. Then the yotes showed up. Shoot em
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Questions for the old timers
- Thread starter Thunder Head
- Start date
4x4Taco
Senior Member
In the field I was hunting last week I found several eggs with quarter size holes in them where something ate the yolk. Was this a coon. It was as if a coon picked the egg up in his little hands and bit a hole in the egg and peeled back just enough to get his mouth inside. Found five or six like that.
Thunder Head
Gone but not forgotten
I didn't get serious about hunting until the late 90's. So maybe I just didn't pay enough attention in my younger days.
The turkey recruitment rate started taking a nose dive in the mid 90's. So maybe 5-7 years after the fur market crashed. Yotes started showing up soon after. Started getting wild hogs in the early 2000's. Timber practices changing. Ive always heard raptor numbers were making a comeback after we stopped using DDT.
Seems hopeless sometimes.
I can tell you this. Its not hard to trap a coon. Especially at a feeder. Order a few dog proof traps. Get you some T- stakes, cat food and Marshmallows. There are not as many on my lease as there used to be.
The turkey recruitment rate started taking a nose dive in the mid 90's. So maybe 5-7 years after the fur market crashed. Yotes started showing up soon after. Started getting wild hogs in the early 2000's. Timber practices changing. Ive always heard raptor numbers were making a comeback after we stopped using DDT.
Seems hopeless sometimes.
I can tell you this. Its not hard to trap a coon. Especially at a feeder. Order a few dog proof traps. Get you some T- stakes, cat food and Marshmallows. There are not as many on my lease as there used to be.
Top of Georgia
Member
mossberg 835 hevi-shot tss shot is a factor to and in northern counties lots of timber cutting when they were being stocked
Probably crows. If you’ll watch them they will come in to yelps. They’ll also follow hens midday or evenings to their nest.
XIronheadX
PF Trump Cam Operator !20/20
Field nests are easy pickin from above.
High road
Member
Back in the early 80s the fur buyer would come by our house and pick up our furs never will forget it was the first money I ever made by myself as young teen. Dad had over 40 red and grey foxes ready for him to pick up hanging around our porch. If I remember reds were going for over $50 and bobcats were $75 heck even possums were worth skinning. Here in the mts turkeys were scattered on private land but the public land was in excellent shape. You could hear and see turkeys every where on public land and see scratching all over the place. Now it's the opposite 90% of the birds are on private. The scratching in the mts has been replaced with hog rooting which they destroy nest. We have more people feeding year round and alot of the game (turkey, deer, bear) have relocated. Hawks take their toll because I have witnessed them dive bombing grown turkeys. Even had one fly off with one of those foam decoys and peck the head of it. Coons are probably the worst on destroying nest and killing nesting hens. Any one who has chickens free range has probably had hawk or owl problems and the cages have to be coon proofed. Does trapping help? Yes
Imo, the decline in turkeys has to be mostly disease related. I’m in middle Georgia and we have had Predators for a while. We went from a very nice population to virtually none in 2-3 years. Hens as well as gobblers just gone.
Predators take their fair share but the only thing that wipes out an entire population is disease.
We have also had hogs forever or so it seems. The year the decline started I had actually trapped about 50 hogs off of the property so I doubt hogs are the culprit.
Disease. Will never convince me otherwise.
Predators take their fair share but the only thing that wipes out an entire population is disease.
We have also had hogs forever or so it seems. The year the decline started I had actually trapped about 50 hogs off of the property so I doubt hogs are the culprit.
Disease. Will never convince me otherwise.
Gadget
Senior Member
I definitely feel like an old timer
XIronheadX
PF Trump Cam Operator !20/20
I've thought the same thing, Ihunt. Some of the best properties the last 10 yrs were covered with predators. Still had loads of turkeys. Although habitat condenses them at times, the population has held up. It's been great since 2008 where I've been. Then again those places haven't been producing aflatoxins.
Bigtimber
Senior Member
Nothing I haven't noticed an increase that much....except the yokes. I beleive those yokes are some eating machines.
buckpasser
Senior Member
I agree. It happened too fast to be all predators, all weather, etc. I’m not “whining” or crying about it. I believe they’ll bounce back, but here are a list of things that always make it tough even without disease:
Every predator eats turkeys and their eggs
Weather effects recruitment for good or bad
Turkeys aren’t “new” around here anymore and people and critters have learned to target them more than when they were
Feeders congregate turkeys and make them easier targets for prey
Idiots shoot them during deer season
Mowers kill them without remorse
The hardwood mill stays backed up all the time
CRP pines fields are gone and back in ag
Improper fire and lack of it at all doesn’t help them
I like them, so Murphy’s law says they must decline
herb mcclure
Senior Member
Lots of unknown to why turkeys numbers are down. like NC Hillbilly has stated, there are lots of turkeys in his area;where there never were any in recent times.
It is hard for me to believe that in the mountains where I hunt, the turkeys there have never seen or know what a pasture field looks like. No chicken litter up there. This downturn in population is several states wide; except in what I call "new ground".
buckpasser
Senior Member
I’m not saying it is disease from chicken litter. Mosquito spread is more what I was thinking. The game chicken guys call one disease “fowl pox”. It turns a turkey’s head into one continuous bed of bumps and blisters and their eyes swell shut. They can survive it in captivity if their owner has enough patience to force feed them. In the wild there’s absolutely no way they could avoid death. If this disease does come through an area, would we even notice it? The infected birds would be eaten so quickly I doubt we’d see many of them, especially if it were in the summer when not many of us are in the woods.
I too know of areas that never had turkeys that have them now. I also know of areas that once flourished with turkeys that are now void of them. Most of that has to do with habitat change.
There is death in the woods every day. Believe it or not critters die. I’m in the woods 365 days a year and find death all the time. Why? Who knows, maybe they get sick just like we do. May be weather related. May be stress related. What I do know is I can only control 2 factors where I hunt and that the habitat and predators. What’s even better is our local WMA is doing the exact same thing. The land is now being managed and traps are out as I type. We can’t control everything that effects a turkeys well being but we need to do what we can.
There is death in the woods every day. Believe it or not critters die. I’m in the woods 365 days a year and find death all the time. Why? Who knows, maybe they get sick just like we do. May be weather related. May be stress related. What I do know is I can only control 2 factors where I hunt and that the habitat and predators. What’s even better is our local WMA is doing the exact same thing. The land is now being managed and traps are out as I type. We can’t control everything that effects a turkeys well being but we need to do what we can.
bonecollector
Senior Member
I agree with NCHillbilly ! we also have a fire ant problem
Gaswamp
Senior Member
nah you been gone long enuff ur now a newbie....went to visit with Curtis this winter and your name came up....hope you are well
Gadget
Senior Member
Hey Joe hope everything is good. I haven't talked to Curtis in a while I've been wondering how he's doing, he still owes me a fishing trip...lol
saltysenior
Senior Member
Disease is the only answer that will cover the problem in all areas of the eastern U.S. that has had a major decline in turkey population.....as an ''old timer'',I have been very close to two large populations of turkeys that vanished in 2 years time..
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