Sorry I never even looked at the username, I know you know what we have going on around here and that its not natural or hunter caused mortality.

Turkey's would be extinct in Bama if folks could use a rifle to kill them with legally

rifles were legal in Alabama till about 1966 or so....very few folks used em though.

the old man that taught me turkey hunting would crawl out of his grave and break both my legs for shooting hens.....

X2 He always said the way to kill your turkey population is to shoot hens.

So what is it then?

I really think it is just population cycles. We had ten or so years with great numbers, and now we are at the bottom of the cycle. If a major disease outbreak had came through I think that someone would have found piles of dead birds, or at least the reminants. We all just got used to the big numbers, but hopefully this is the bottom of the cycle and numbers will start to improve and level out to normal numbers. We may never see the numbers we have had in the past though.

I imagine it was the way they used to dig trenches, fill them with corn, and put a blind on one end. Then wait till the flock showed up in a line eating the corn, and send a bunch of shot down the trench killing them all. That, and all the deforestation that took place back then.

My boy and I were up last week squirrel//varmint huntin and saw a lot of turkey sign.
Coming back around thanksgiving for deer/turkey.
Would love to put him on a fall gobbler.

Nobody knows, personally I don't think it's natural, and I don't think it's population cycles. Giles and Wayne County are starting to see huntable populations again but not so much in Lawrence, but it is getting better. I know people around little that found dead bird's in there pastures.

I personally think some kind of spray,chemical or something killed alot of the birds, and I also think alot of the hens have been sterile. Nobody fall hunted in our county but a very few, I think I killed 2 over an 8 year period on 10,000 acres that surrounds us that Noone else hunTed. We had HUGE flocks and they simply just disappeared. 2 fall turkey simply cannot be contributed to the downfall of a turkey population the size we had. Or county wide.

No telling how many are killed in maury and Lewis county spring and fall but the population continue to grow

I think your memory is bad; sure sign of old age.

I think I remember still toting a rifle and a shotgun in the 1969 spring season. That was the year that my supposedly repaired Spanish sxs had both barrels go off when I raised it to shoot a gobbler and flipped the safety off as I did. I remember trying to grab the rifle as the turkey flew off, but it was too late. The gun busted my lip and I remember playing in a baseball game that afternoon. I played first base and everyone who got on base on the other team kept asking me what happened to my lip.

At any rate, all of the group of hunters that hunted with my dad in the 60s carried a rifle and a shotgun. That may not have been the norm in other places, but those guys had nobody to teach them how to turkey hunt and learned as they went. I do remember that I was glad when they banned the rifles; it was a huge hassle to carry 2 guns thru the woods, but you didn't dare risk having one hang up out of range and not have a rifle handy.

Hal, you have helped so many folks with their turkey shells that I wouldn't begrudge you a hen.

pretty sure rifles were illegal in 1969. Not saying you didn't tote one but even my old brain thinks it was at least three er four years before 1969

I had a Model 43 .22Hornet I sold just so I wouldn't go shoot turkeys with it...dang nice little gun.

I've tried to look it up and can't find the regs back then

I appreciate that. I hope to have the chance to kill one on Saturday, if I can find one to try to call in.

Be very interested if you can find a copy of the regs from that era, cause it could be that something I "remembered" was wrong. Still, I'm 99% sure I had my dad's rifle that morning. It was one of the few times he ever let me carry one; I did enough missing with a shotgun. But I remember that he had limited out and really wanted me to get one, and let me borrow his rifle. I didn't even own one myself at that point.

I just now went and dug out my old yellowed hunting log that I started sometime in the late 70s when I began to have trouble remembering which year things happened. According to it, it was actually the spring of 1970 when I think I had the rifle with me. I'm sure that they were illegal by the spring of 1971; I was in the 11th grade that year and got to hunt a lot and killed 3 gobblers, and I'm sure I never carried a rifle.

I'm gonna guess that rifles were made illegal for turkey by the decree of Charles Kelley in the summer of 1970. I would furthermore guess that nobody else had any input into the decision.

Prove me wrong if you can.

I've tried to look it up, can't find anything

I'd bet yer right about who outlawed rifles....

Didn't a few counties in AL have a fall season where you could use a rifle up until recently? Recall Clarke county was one??

NO, fall seasons yes, rifles not since 1966-70 depending on who ya listen to....LOL

when DCNR legalized handguns in 1975 er so one of the biologists in Montgomery got a TC 22Hornet with a scope and killed five gobblers that spring. Charles Kelly immediately outlawed scopes on handguns...LOL

You do understand the concept of additive mortality though, right?

If you perceive a decline in the population yourself for whatever reason but hunters continue to shoot hens, surely you see that it could cause an issue over the long term...

Mr. Google doesn't seem to have a clue on this. You are bound to know somebody that could tell us the exact date. Find out; you got me wondering if I was hunting illegal.

I just went and checked the deeds - the first tract of my land my dad bought for our farm was in March of 1967. That surprised me; I've been thinking for years it was 1966, so that's proof I'm capable of being wrong on dates.

But this I remember with 100% certainty. Sometime after buying that tract, we grew our first chufa patch and my dad shot a gobbler out of it on the first weekend of the season one year. And I know he shot him with a 30-06, cause I can remember him telling the story twice to different hunting buddies before we ever made it home that morning. It was a cold and miserable rainy day, and he sent me off to a field that didn't have any turkeys. He went to the field that had a whole flock with a bunch of hens and 5 or 6 gobblers. He was so cold and wet that he decided not to wait on shotgun range and blasted one with the rifle. The turkey ran out of the field, but he found him pretty quick.

I remember that day like yesterday, and it could not have possibly been any earlier than 1968. We spent the summer of 1967 clearing the old fields on the place, and I doubt we had time to plant chufas that summer, so its far more likely that he killed that turkey in 1969, or maybe even 1970. I'm still thinking rifles were outlawed in summer of 1970, but would love to see a reg book from that era to know for sure.

Before anyone questions the ethics of shooting a gobbler out of a chufa patch with a 30-06, let me say that the idea that there was anything wrong with such a practice had never crossed the mind of anyone in that hunting group. There were no turkey forums to tell folks what was permissible and what wasn't, so they were foolish enough to think that it was ok if it was legal.

I am glad rifles are now outlawed, but that was a different era. It takes time for a turkey hunting culture to develop. The states with low spring limits will never develop the kind of culture that AL has now, and I think the turkeys lose in the long run because of that.

But that's a different soap box, so I will step down.

A good day to all!