This post got me thinking. Everytime we left the camp this turkey season we would take a different rd. 1st trip we took 84 west out of monroeville to grove hill and then 43 south to 65. Never saw a turkey anywhere. Next trip
We took the hwy that runs from Uriah to Stockton thru little river and never saw a bird there either. We also took 21 to Atmore and no birds. Last trip we took our regular route thru repton on 41. No birds there also and never saw any birds anywhere along I65. I don't really know where I'm going with this, just an observation.

Fayetteville county-way down- litter I'm not sure of, I've heard that some farmers were using it but don't know that for certain

Fuel to the fire in Chambers (sorry PCP) Hunted 20 mornings and never saw any turkey chit in any of our foodplots or roads. Heard 7 shots the first 2 weeks and one was mine.

No litter in the areas I hunt of Shelby county but the numbers have gone down steadily the last 3-4 years.

Montgomery county- Normal- No litter
Pike Co- Normal- No litter

Here's a thought. I grew up hunting WILD Bobwhite quail in Alabama. Their numbers have not been cyclical. 20+ years and their population is still way down. I don't want this to happen to the WILD turkey! When's the last time when you heard of someone killing a limit of WILD quail? The limit when I hunted used to be 12 and it is now 8. I have seen no difference. They are a ground nesting bird as well. PCP, not trying to get away from the litter subject matter just knew this thread had a lot of visibility and I am concerned.

I think the quail decline is much easier to answer - its all about habitat. We still had good numbers of quail on our farm until the early 80s and then they all but disappeared. The pines planted in 1979 began to shade the ground and quail never recovered.

That was also about the time timber companies quit site prepping with dozers and switched to herbicides. Quail did great on those early clearcuts that were prepped with dozers. If the industry went back to that, quail would come back strong. But it won't happen. The limit was very much a moot point . I've killed lots of quail, but never once killed 12 in a day.

Post it soon if you want to be counted in the poll.

Chilton Co, Down, No litter.
In years past, early season we would have 3 or 4 groups of 15-20 hens, this year it is 3 or 4 groups of 10 hens or less. 3 or 4 Gobblers on camera and 3 jakes, and no gobbling.

Butler County 1 - normal - no litter
Butler County 2 - normal - no litter
Butler County 3 - normal - litter
Lowndes County 1 - normal - no litter
Lowndes County 2 - low - no litter
Lowndes County 3 - normal -no litter
Dallas County - normal - no litter
Henry County - lower than previous years- no litter known but Ag nearby.
St. Clair County - normal - no litter
Cherokee County - high - no litter
Shelby County - low - no litter known but Ag nearby.
Fayette 1 - low - litter nearby
Fayette 2 - low - no litter known but Ag nearby.

Washington County - normal
Clarke County - normal numbers - poor gobbling
Wilcox County - normal numbers - poor gobbling
Dallas County - normal

no litter any of those places.

So we put what I would guess is untreated chicken litter on our place in Tennessee and that's about 4k acres a whole lot of which is tillable land. And I guess have since I was old enough to remember so maybe 30-35 years or something. We have chicken houses. My cousin runs it so I don't know anything about treating chicken poop. I'm also not an Auburn grad.

And I use to see flocks of 100+ but now I'm down to like 85+. I'd say that is due to the State of TN opening up public hunting on a little stretch of woods next door.

I think your turkey hunting is kind of like your deer hunting. You got a bunch of doe killers hanging out next door you will suffer. You got a bunch of Turkey hunters running around shooting them to pieces you will suffer.

Turkey hunting is getting to be kind of like Duck Hunting got to be a couple years ago with the Duck Commander crowd. They all went out and bought a shotgun and figured out real quick that duck hunting is cold, wet and the hunting in Bama is poor at best. So seems like the tide is turing and every jackleg with a Yeti and a pair of Costas is a turkey hunter nowdays. Definitely more hunters.

I shoot a bird or two and quit hunting a place and move on. Nobody else really hunts any of the places I hunt. So I'm never hurting the hunting, but if I had 5-6 more guys coming behind me shooting 1-3 a piece pretty soon I'd suspect I'd not have as many. That's how that works.

Too bad Alabama is the worst State in the entire Country as far as wildlife management is concerned or they'd have something more than a primarily uneducated guess as to what is going on and possibly could shed some light on these types of issues.

Fire Ants got the quail IMO along the lines of pine habitat. Along with more importantly we don't farm anymore, we plant trees, and for years those that did... well we turned the residue under.

Colbert (south of hwy72 and west of the Trace) --population down- chicken litter

The number of big flocks we used to see is way down. I mentioned this about 5 years ago.

What has me concerned is the low numbers of hens, jakes and gobblers seem to be down just a little. Hens seem to be down about half or a little than we used to see.

East of the Trace seems to be about the same as years past.

Thanks for all the replies. I will compile the info provided to this point. It took the dcnr until the end of February to release the hunter survey results, but I plan to release mine before the end of the day. Unless I start watching TV. .

I'll put the results in a new thread called Turkeys vs Chickens Poll.

FYI.. Auburn is in the beginning stages of a 5 year study examining the decline of turkey populations across the southeast. It will be the most comprehensive study on the subject matter to date and hopefully will show definitively what is behind the declining numbers.

Thanks! That study has been discussed a lot on here, and I suspect it will be discussed a lot more.

Actually it is

I would describe it a the life history of turkeys on State wildlife management areas.