And you thought this year was bad for Spring turkey

[turkeyfeathers]

An incredibly wet and cold June is going to impact nesting severely. The next few years are going to be worse than this year. I only shot one bird this year and sorta glad I did. Hoping the few jakes I heard/saw make it til at least two year olds for next year. I'll skip the fall hunt once again. Fingers crossed for a good/decent 2016 Spring season

[phade]

My spring hunting has been reduced to just a few days total now...3 or 4 tops....and 2 of them are practically a guy's weekend getaway Sackett's Harbor area. 

[Five Seasons]

i haven't been going after birds for too long, but the stories i hear about turkey hunting back in the day make me sad. I still think it's easier to kill a deer and that really shouldn't be the case. Heck I remember just 10 years ago seeing dozens bowhunting and I rarely see a few in the fall now.

[growalot]

Same here I took just one bird....there were so many hunters on the hill this year...I saw a few jakes walking around I decided to just not go out....what bothers me now is the # of birds (hens) together and no chicks in sight on my cams...

[turkeyfeathers]

It's also odd I'm not seeing birds at all. Since end of season, farmers have plowed and tilled fields. No birds are out dusting or picking bugs. No chicks is not a good sign Grow. That's my concern. Have buddies taking road trips and not seeing anything either. Little worried here. I say nix the fall season and go to one Spring bird for a few years and hope the population spikes. I've said before " Deer hunting fills my freezer but turkey hunting fills my heart".

[growalot]

I said in another post ...in jest....We need to have coon hunting 10 months a year...I actually have been thinking on this the last few days...I really believe the should have some sort of emergency protocol by where they could do that for a year .  then put a mandatory take report or have a special permit issued to the hunters. We are seeing a rise in rabies and I think this would go along ways to help that as well....Ya ya the fur guys would pitch a fit ,but having raccoon populations out of control isn't good for them either. They want healthy raccoons , sometimes a reset needs to happen. At the very least it could possible show  their impact on turkey nesting.

[turkeyfeathers]

coons aren't even worth trapping/hunting the last few years. $10 at best for a xxl skinned, scraped and stretched. A lot don't even get bought at auction. I live in the village and caught #4 bandit in the box trap this morning. I miss the days of the $40-50 dollar coon on the whole.

[ants]

Very wet is right. But I have been seeing a lot of birds in the fields…..Would chicks be hatched yet???

[mac]

Ants, incubation is about 28 days for turkeys

[ants]

Thanx

[growalot]

All the more reason to treat them as we do woodchucks...as I said for at least one year...When I have a neighbor tell me he shot 11 raccoon out of two pear trees in just one night...and 22 were taken off the hill here last year..... yet my cameras are a raccoon 390 or 5 & 20(guys around here know what I mean) then there are too dang many of them out there. The DEC needs to address the lack of trapping/fur hunter pelt prices.....with an overpopulation of eco impacting game animals...besides deer.

Raccoon destroy all types of crops...they eat an ever shrinking population of reptilians, they impact not only game bird hatches, but song bird hatches. They spread round worm and rabies, they destroy property. The hunter next door came back this spring to  a collapsed ceiling in his camp and 1 ft of raccoon shite...he is afraid he'll never be able to remove the smell.

[turkeyfeathers]

All the more reason to treat them as we do woodchucks...as I said for at least one year...When I have a neighbor tell me he shot 11 raccoon out of two pear trees in just one night...and 22 were taken off the hill here last year..... yet my cameras are a raccoon 390 or 5 & 20(guys around here know what I mean) then there are too dang many of them out there. The DEC needs to address the lack of trapping/fur hunter pelt prices.....with an overpopulation of eco impacting game animals...besides deer.

Raccoon destroy all types of crops...they eat an ever shrinking population of reptilians, they impact not only game bird hatches, but song bird hatches. They spread round worm and rabies, they destroy property. The hunter next door came back this spring to  a collapsed ceiling in his camp and 1 ft of raccoon shite...he is afraid he'll never be able to remove the smell.

the DEC unfortunately has nothing to do with people getting out there and slinging steel to catch fur. It's the Chinese and others farm raising fur so our American furs are not needed

[growalot]

I understand that and it's beside the point...they enacted hunting trapping seasons to protect a fur bearing game species...that fur bearing species no long has the value it once did and is over populated due to being under hunted...the numbers need to be brought down and the DEC isn't addressing the problem. A problem that has an impact on other game and non game species that they are trying to correct numbers on as I type this. Do not waste funds and time implementing new regulations for one, if you do not address regulation changes to what is negatively  impacting the species your trying to bring back. They seem to walk around with blinders on and conservation needs a wide view not tunnel vision to work.

[thphm]

Saw enough turkeys on my property this year,Had a nice Tom , strutting and doing his thing all hunting season long,I hope he found a mate,Females would be walking around about a 1/2 hour before he would show up.Still have them walking all around the place every day. Had no desire to shoot any this year.I have enough feathers for fletching  and tying flies .

[thphm]

As for the little furry things , just soot them and leave them out in the field , nature will take its course .

[turkeyfeathers]

How do you suppose the DEC fix this ? They surely can't lengthen the season as furs will not be prime and be even more worthless than it already is. 3 years ago when muskrats were bringing $8-12+ per on average I sure as heck didn't try and catch any $5 coon.

Edited July 2, 2015 by turkeyfeathers

[growalot]

OMG...I know I said somewhere above ...treat them like woodchucks,implement a one year, 10 month, hunting season ,require kill # reports and asked if they couldn't do this through an emergency type protocol. in that time they maybe able to get an idea of just how many are out there. This has nothing to do with fur but every thing to do with population control....

[turkeyfeathers]

OMG...I know I said somewhere above ...treat them like woodchucks,implement a one year, 10 month, hunting season ,require kill # reports and asked if they couldn't do this through an emergency type protocol. in that time they maybe able to get an idea of just how many are out there. This has nothing to do with fur but every thing to do with population control....

ah , gotcha, but think I have a better chance of hooking up with Heidi Klum than this ever happening

[Lawdwaz]

Tag for future fun

[landtracdeerhunter]

Establish a U.S. fur trade market again. Difficult, but not impossible.

[Doc]

OMG...I know I said somewhere above ...treat them like woodchucks,implement a one year, 10 month, hunting season ,require kill # reports and asked if they couldn't do this through an emergency type protocol. in that time they maybe able to get an idea of just how many are out there. This has nothing to do with fur but every thing to do with population control....

It is likely that such a move would really have no significant effect on turkey populations. Woodchucks hang out in wide open fields and present a fairly easy target of opportunity. Coons are something that you have to actually go after purposely if you are going to have much success, and they are primarily nocturnal. That means trapping, hounds, or something other than just riding the back roads on a nice summer afternoon has to purposely take place to get them. Fur prices are the only real motivator for hunting them, and prices are in the toilet.

 

Also, remember that raccoons are only one of many nest raiders. Yes, long seasons on coons would very rarely maybe get one here and there. You would do as good purposely aiming for them with your car .... lol. The results on turkey populations would be negligible. 

[growalot]

Not sure if you have actually hunted them...it's not that difficult...as I said neighbor shot 11 in one night out of 2 pear trees...

[Doc]

Not sure if you have actually hunted them...it's not that difficult...as I said neighbor shot 11 in one night out of 2 pear trees...

I have been on hound hunts at night which is a real effective way of getting them, but certainly cannot be called "easy" from an exertion point of view. Also, those hounds are not really all that inexpensive to buy and maintain. I spent many years trapping them when their prices were up, and they were no real challenge as long as the population was on a high cycle. All of these styles of hunting/trapping were driven only by the cost of the fur. Low prices, no one hunting them. High prices, they get pretty good pressure. It's all about the fur, and expanding their season does nothing to motivate that.

 

I am not saying that occasionally something weird won't rarely happen like what you have described with your neighbor and his per trees. But even at that, there is not a whole lot of motivation for anyone to head out to the pear tree in the middle of the night waiting for some coons to show up.... lol.  Especially some time in the summer when the fur is trash. So I suspect you could make the season open all year, and never see any positive impact in the turkey population. You can increase opportunities without really increasing motivation.

[Pygmy]

Given  favorable nesting and brood rearing habitat, three major factors control turkey numbers...

 

Weather, weather, and weather...

 

The average hatching date in NY is June 11th, or thereabouts.. As long as we keep having unseasonably wet, cool weather in June, we will continue to have depressed turkey numbers..

 

Shoot all the coons,foxes, coyotes, skunks, possums and armored dildos that you want, and it is not going to increase turkey numbers nearly as much as two or three consecutive good hatches would..

 

Perhaps we should encourage Al Gore to postpone his global warming process for a few years until turkey populations rebound.. 

 

 

[growalot]

Well I see....

1.stop hunting them (turkey)is the solution

2.realize it's mostly weather ...so forget egg perdition by under hunted, little valued fur

animals,don't hunt them as well.

3.understand that trying to come up with solutions to getting more live poults..which will still have to take a large hit from predators(with an increasing population),is not incentive enough to increase hunting them.

4.realize why hunting is headed the way it is.

Edited July 10, 2015 by growalot