Swamp, not sure where you hunt in South Florida, but public land is tougher than anywhere else I’ve been in the country. Most of the time it’s I “hope” we hear one today and that may be the highlight of your hunt.

Y’all keep talking about how great your turkey hunting is, it’s coming soon to y’all as well. I used to travel to Kansas every year and it would take me longer to drive out there than it would to kill a bird. Now they have a draw for OOS hunters. Ohio reduced their limits.

About the only place I’ve seen “good” numbers on public access land is the PNW and a few Western States. It seems the Merriam population is thriving despite stupid trapping regs and harsh winters. Down here they’re even talking of shutting down some WMA’s to try and give the turkeys a chance. 20K acres and only 3-7 birds a year killed over the last several years means there’s a problem. I blame that WMA decline on hogs and predators. A Hurricane that destroyed all the hardwood swamps didn’t help either.

Numbers on private managed lands are stable or increasing. But read the “managed” part. We have a 2 gobbler limit in this state, but the managed lands set a self imposed 1 bird limit per person and none of these properties kills more than 3-4 a year. I just showed a pic of 5 gobblers and those aren’t the birds on the North side of the property. Now it remains to be seen if the taking of less gobblers will help in the long run, but we will see.

As mentioned, everything out there will feast on eggs/poults/hens. Ants will take out newly hatched poults/chicks/fawns. Raptors will do the same. Crows will do the same. Every 4 legged predator will do the same. And then you have the guys that just hunt to show their self on social media. We could decrease the amount of birds killed by probably 50% if they’d outlaw decoys and make jakes off limits. I know VERY few folks that actually know how to turkey hunt, it’s throw out decoys, a blind, and wait. I get people telling me decoys don’t work like you think…then why do you use them, lol?? I know decoys and fanning works because I did it for years. I realized that ain’t hunting.

I can’t control everything to bring the turkey numbers back, but the things that I can control, I do. Habitat, predator control, and taking less birds will have to help in some limited way.

To top it off our dept of conservation decided to double our season this year (used to have to stop at 1:00 now can hunt all day). For the last 1-2 years it seems like those in MN,WI, and MI are reporting a lot of turkeys much like we had here in the late 90's through about 2010. I am interested to see what happens to their population in 10-20 years. I have even had a wild idea that when turkey numbers are increasing it may take predators awhile to hone their skills on egg/poult/adult killing. Then when they have it perfected and taught to their young then the population drop starts in. Maybe a crazy idea but know one has explanations that are solid. Thousands of acres of prime habitat with little to no turkeys shoots down the habitat explanation. Several examples of high predator numbers that are along side high turkey numbers. Several times I have thought of Silent Spring. May not be chemicals but something is going on that has not been discovered.

Have you looked at the MO kill numbers this year? 43,380, the third year in a row that the number has increased and 2024 is at near record level.

Not disputing your local observations though. I am in the same situation you are in but in NC. Turkey population is poor where I live but overall, the state kill is near record level here also. Areas that used to be a mecca for turkey hunting and where turkeys were trapped to be relocated to low population areas have dropped way down but other areas of the state are still increasing.

Sounds like you have a similar situation in MO.

Do you have hunt clubs turning loose pen raised birds?

Wanna Be, do you really feel that harvesting gobblers is adding to the issue? I’m not challenging it, although it doesn’t make sense to me. When I was coming up, most everyone I knew killed a hen or 2 during the Fall season. Now it’s kinda taboo to do so. Other than passing on the best genes, why do you draw that conclusion? The males don’t protect nests or poults. I would think there’s plenty of birds to breed the hens. Trying to understand your position.

Only gobblers breed or are successful breeders. If you have X number of gobblers on your property and shoot them all, who breeds the hens?

How realistic is it that all of the gobblers are being eradicated? Hens should migrate (within reason) to where the males are, if there aren’t any, or other gobblers should move in. It’s as much of an urge for the hens to mate as it is for the gobbler.

I know you’re an educated, hardcore turkey hunter (this isn’t an underhanded dig, I read your stuff and can tell based on how you talk about it). How many times have you killed the boss bird on a property and had 2,3 or 4 birds you never knew where around start gobbling in the next week or so? I don’t know that it’s practical to kill all the birds in a substantial area, especially if you have any appreciable swamps.

I just don’t understand how folks killing more gobblers with dekes, etc., make an impact. At least anything significant.

WB,
My South Florida info is second hand but recent. I have 7 members in one of my leases here that are from Lake County (slightly north of Orlando) and a bit further south. They've told me (and continue to tell me) about the high turkey population there. Their info is all referencing private land....not public. And all have high feral hog populations and likely high predators too.

I hope to get in on a place down there soon, but it's probably gonna cost me a gobbler or buck deer here in trade.

Calling in a gobbler is the most exciting hunt I've ever experienced, , have hunted deer, bear, elk and moose .something about the gobbling getting closer and closer.
That said, from everything I have experienced, another gobbler is always waiting in the wings if something happens to the boss gobbler.
Have seen as many as 19 gobblers and jakes in a male only flock a few times.
Seems until mating season the hens and young jakes will flock together over winter, but come mating season the jakes move out to join the gobblers on the fringe .
Have seen jakes mixed with hens during mating season , but just IMHO they weren't mature enough yet.
Gobblers will roost with a flock of hens also. But during the winter, the jakes and gobblers form all male flocks.

Don't know much about turkeys. Never cared for them muck.
I do know our population of them has diminished big time in the past couple years. And it's not because of hunting pressure.
I don't know ONE person within 20 miles that even hunted this year.

Had a very good flock of 40 plus on a farm, and someone bought a farm next to it.
They hunted also , but were from the city.
First thing they did was buy pen raised quail and turned them loose , a year later , no quail and no turkey.

The 2024 season had all day hunting. Know of several birds killed this year in the evening. I would like to see our harvest numbers without fans, todays quality decoys, and 40+ yard shot capabilities. The large drop in the population is not state wide. NW MO in particular has saw a large drop that our MDC specifically has studied and been perplexed with. Their study pointed to possible habitat and predator issues but in the end admitted that they still do not completely understand the drop. I have dealt with several biologists from the MDC in various studies. Good people but generally limited field experience, and hours in the field hunting/trapping. Just the facts but having a biology degree and having killed a handful of spring toms does not make one an authority.

I agree with all this ^^^^^^

I've experienced gobblers move in many times when I killed the only gobbling turkey on my place. Maybe they were there the entire time....not sure.

Back in my GW days I've followed lone gobbler tracks for more than 3 miles before he left the road. This was on huge deer leases (10 thousand acres of timber with miles and miles of sandy roads). This usually was observed in late February thru out spring.

in March I trapped a bunch of raccoons , possums and skunks all within 25 feet of the silo

then I pulled traps and thought I had gotten them it was about a dozen

mid April coons tearing apart grandma's coop lost 5 birds I set , this was about 130 yards from the silo , 6dp and a cage
and was getting them every night I really thought we I got 3 on night 1,2 it would slow down fast , then it was 2 , 2, 2, I lost count I think we were at about 15-18 racoon 4-5 possum 2 skunk in about 2 1/2 weeks before it finally stopped and there were was one I shot crossing the pasture

that is a lot of predators for a very small area

given the number of roadkill right now , I don't think it is just right around the farm I think a million racoons would hardly put a dent in the coon population of Wisconsin right now.

last summer we were out night fishing on the rock it was like a super highway of coons down the river bank all night. easily saw 50 every spot we fished or moving to new spots over about a 7 mile area , scan the bank with the spot light and have 5-8 sets of eyes looking back a group every 100 yards or so in places.

that has to cut into nesting numbers

I blame it on hawks eagles and owls.

80+% cropland here (corn and soybeans mostly) and our turkey numbers are increasing. Who knows...

. 43,000 plus is FAR from Missouri’s record harvest. As memory serves it’s 62,000 plus for the record. This years harvest increase was due to doubling the length of the season. Not an increased turkey population in Missouri.

It’s not just turkeys here my friends. Used to be so many whip or wills here that you couldn’t hardly hear a turkey gobble at daylight. I heard 1 this spring.
Many songbird species are way down.
Adult bullfrogs are nonexistent here. Used to be able to catch a limit anytime you went.
Crawfish are about gone. Used to be thick.
Bullhead catfish are gone. Used to be in every mudhole cattle pond.
But the thing that really stands out to me is the lack of insects. Grasshoppers of many species were absolutely thick for my entire life. Millions of them. That’s a very visible insect. What about those that aren’t so visible? During hot summertime, you HAD to wash your windshield constantly to get the smashed bugs off. Not anymore. You can go all summer and never wash your windshield. Drop off in a creek bottom on a hot summer night and it sounded like it was raining from the bugs on the windshield. Not anymore.
All anecdotal evidence, but one thing is certain. Turkey poults and many of the above listed critters must have insects to survive.
Poult survival is the issue.
Nobody is going to fight big Ag over less insects.
This is farm country. I can’t speak for elsewhere, but I’ve hunted turkeys in 17 states. It’s the same most places.

We’re on the same page claycreech. I haven’t done extensive research, but you’ll see similar studies on pesticides cited for the decline in waterfowl in the central flyway.

I also want to be clear that I’m not bashing farmers when I talk about their current practices. My farm is leased, I want the farmer to do well and I want to keep getting paid. I just think we hear so much about predation, loss of habitat, etc., that we should really start looking in some other areas to get a full picture because what has been historically looked at in the SE isn’t paying dividends based on the data.

No. Illegal here. Been the same around here for for years and years and the numbers seem to be increasing. I saw 3 turkey hit on the road at separate locations the other day just going to Menards 13 miles away. And I'm not saying they aren't declining elsewhere....Just not here. I don't pretend to know why.

I always like Clays big picture observations. On that note, I still hear lots of frogs in the ponds and I've got bugs on my windshield. Lots of oak trees in SE MN, too. I know they tear up the soil under about every oak tree here in the big woods and lots of corn and bean fields between.

Again...I feel you are correct. What wildlife agencies are trying down here isn't working.

Here in Georgia three years ago:
They shortened our season by 2 weeks.
They reduced limit from 3 gobblers to 2.
They created a 1 gobbler daily bag limit (prior years could kill all 3 same day.)

All this was enacted because "research" says removing the breeding gobblers disrupts the breeding cycle too much causing delayed breeding, much later nesting, poor hatching success. I don't buy into this reasoning.

Here's the interesting thing about all this...we just completed our 3rd year of these new regs here in Georgia, but this same group of reductions, plus 1 gobbler per WMA per season, was put in place 5 years ago on a large WMA in what has historically been considered prime middle Georgia Piedmont turkey woods (Cedar Creek WMA). There has been no noticeable increase in the population...in fact it appears there is a continuing decline.