How bad were crop losses for farmers back in the 80's and early 90's due to deer and turkey????.....Did that reach a peak during this time period??

We used to see groups of 75-100+ turkey in Paint Rock Valley back then??

We're all having the wrong conversation at the end of the day.......These concepts are not that complicated and if the State wanted to increase the "supply" of both deer and turkey they could easily do so. There's really not the big Scooby Doo mystery to be solved


.....or maybe there is.

Trapping completely left the equation here, it was a profit back in the day and the bottom fell out. Also, I know many of farmers and hunters that took care of the hawks and anything that was considered not welcome. Nature will do its thing I don't care what anyone says but I sometimes like to help it along. 1 thing I have noticed is coyotes and coons are in every holler and on each ridge. I have hunted and seen a lot of turkeys in areas where I'd not hear a gobble or a turkey sound of any kind. I don't blame 1 or several to not gobble, they get ate. I feel they have adapted to survival by being quite.

Some around here went out due to prices and droughts.

Let me restate this. There is NOT single hunter that hunter back then, in the areas of the map, that will say we’re doing good now. All will tell you what I’m saying. This is farmers that worked those fields, land owners and hunters. All talk about how bad it’s gotten. Even the ones that started in 05 -10 time frame say the same.

The last two years have shown a possible turnaround.

I don’t think y’all could understand the shear number of bird skilled back then. That’s WHY is say hunters are the number one predators. On Jerry’s place 400 acres, I know is a few years over 20 long beard killer there with many still gobbling. The great kille doer year in the 20 I hunted it was 10-12

Birds in that area also gobbled I mean gobbled. No matter the weather they gobbled. All morning long. That quit later on and became like most other places.

Hunters dont kill hens or jakes.........If you wanted to increase the number of adult male birds on the landscape the first thing to do would be outlaw decoys or limit their use to only youth season....Its blatantly obvious that it had an impact. The problem there though is that all the states are looking at each other for the "solution" and when one does something to "fix" the issue then others will want to follow suite and someone will be selling a whole lot less decoys.

Lots of factors have all come together at same time to decrease the numbers in my opinion. I hunted two areas in Alabama this year 30 miles apart. One area has an increasing population, the other decreasing. The birds for the most part gobbled good on the increasing area and horrible on the decreasing (turkeys were killed on the decreasing tho as still has a somewhat huntable population). Corn has increased the predator population, especially coons, and before ya'll say it, the use of corn was not as prevalent, before baiting was allowed, as it is now. TSS has certainly killed field birds that would not have died. Decoys have let people that otherwise had little chance at killing a turkey kill them on a regular basis. Increase in hunters? , possibly. Loss of agriculture, for sure has hurt. Loss of habitat, yes, 110%. Hogs, yes. The odd thing to me on my areas I can hunt is the place with the decreasing population has much better habitat.

Probably already discussed but I'm too lazy to read 11 pages.....

Whatever happened in the 80's is over. That's got nothing to do with today. That is completely irrelevant at this point that's been 30 years ago.


I know 2 people who got their first Turkeys this year and are both super pumped about Turkey hunting in general. They are now Turkey Hunters. Nothing wrong with that - I enjoy it myself.

They both shot them from a Ground Blind using a Decoy in a food plot.

So basically they bushwhacked them. That's my opinion.

Back in the day most of us Turkey Hunters never considered this. IT was considered un-sportsmanlike to ambush one from a shooting house window. That was rare and if you did that you didn't admit this among your hunting collogues.

Hunters are the predator. This is absolutely no different than Deer Hunting. Hunters dictate everything. Just like those doe blasters on the property next to you ensuring you NEVER have the chance at a good racked buck.

If you had Turkeys and now you don't. They are dead. That's the answer. What the limit is doesn't matter. If you shoot your birds then you will have less birds. It's up to you to determine how many you can actually kill before your population suffers or maybe goes away entirely. That's your decision. If you want more birds then do something about it. Stop shooting them. Start working on habitat.

VERY SIMPLE.

All this being said IMO their populations would and have always fluctuated on any given property. Back in the day when the population was down from 50 in a flock to 20 in a flock my grandfather would simply chock that up to a "wet spring". There is nothing scientific about that statement IMO. I think it just happens that way.

I bet that does account for some of the increase in those counties but there was a large 1 year increase this season across nearly all the southern counties.......If you remember we had two of the wettest years on record I believe it was 2 and 3 years ago....or maybe it was 3 and 4....I forget........but those two record rain years should have been the hatching years for what just got killed this year.

The record rainfall may have impacted the rodent populations and the prey abundance.....or it may have impacted people's ability to burn during nesting season.......or both

I would agree 100%. There is nothing ethically wrong with how they hunted, a lot of people hunt them that way. But I don't hunt that way and I don't think a lot of the purist (if you want to call it that) turkey hunters do either. It great to kill one, but it was never about the kill. It's about the chess match thats played on his ground and by his rules. It's strategy, patience, and a little luck every now and then. If I was limited to shooting them in. food plot over decoys out of a ground blind I'd quit. There's no fun in that to me. If I had to kill one for a million dollars then I'd hunt that way. If you sit long enough something will eventually come by.

Cell cameras, while very useful have definitely killed a ton of turkeys. I personally know several that couch hunt. Sit at the camp having a Bud Light (pun intended) and their text goes off. Gobbler in field 3. Jump in the Polaris and haul ass. Sneak up on the field an boom.

Forgot cell cameras in my post. You are correct.

I don't know the rate to be considered good, but one per 1500 acres sounds kinda light to me. Season before last we killed them on one property at a rate of 225 per 1500 acres. That maybe was too much as it dropped off this year to a rate of only 75 per 1500 acres.

Those are accurate numbers, but I will admit that I have read the book, "How to Lie with Statistics."

On a more realistic note, we have averaged around 4 longbeards per season on a 400 acre tract in Perry county. We've killed as many as 6 several times, and have also put up some zeros.

Carter, if you're hunting ag land, it's really not a fair comparable to us LA hunters. I'm hunting very little ag land with the exception of a couple of hay fields and cow pastures. I'd say 1 bird to 100 acres is a realistic expectation with decent habitat. When you're talking about 100+ acre ag field, that kills the bird per acre average quick

Nope the 1 in 1500 acres is not ag land. Not even close but there are food plots and so forth on that property.

The average is much better on that ag land/creek bottom on that map. Nothing like it was but way better than 1 in 1500. Way better.


There’s no way I’m trying to draw a comparison to where anyone else hunts because I have no idea about y’all’s places. That why earlier I mentioned my experiences on lands I know since early 90s.

Lying with stats is easily done. It’s like here in Colbert. CNCs numbers show an increase. Sounds good at first. Then you start asking questions. More birds are being killed in the middle to the eastern side now and less in the western areas. 10-20 years ago there were extremely few birds in the eastern side if any.
One farmer has some birds and won’t let anyone get near them. He’s been in that area all his life and just recently saw turkeys around there. Other surrounding landowners are killing some in that area.

So how are you seeing winter flocks of 70+ birds and I've only ever seen a winter flock of maybe 40 one time. Average winter flock is more like 20. You've got birds in your area, but it sounds like they've found more desirable spring habitat

I’ll say this and bow out

Like Larry said in then press boat series about ducks and hunters

In Louisiana the overall harvest numbers have remained pretty steady.
What has changed is the average per hunter has dropped significantly indicating more hunters
Hunter sentiment was down
Hunters when asked actually wanted to increase the limits even if it was detrimental to the duck populations

That kinda covers both sides of this discussion
I find it intriguing

The only thing that matters is what to do now - to increase numbers. I just don’t believe a strong argument can be made that limits and season delays do much good.

If you can kill 5 the first 10 days of season - reducing the limit has no effect - numbers are fine. If there’s only one that can be killed on your hunting land - what does it matter if the limit is 1 or 100? It doesn’t matter.

Good to know. I figured they might be mistaken.

These type responses are frustrating. This is 6 pages of replies about "X number of birds" and "X number of gobbles", etc. None of that is even knowable, or universal. Whether in the good ol days, or bad days, this has never been comparable in any fashion. Your isolated experiences (location, dates, whatever) don't have enough controls to really be of any use in the conversation. We aren't really addressing the true narrative, which is reduced hunter satisfaction. You may not experience a difference in numbers, BUT there is a widespread/universal sentiment from all 4 corners of Alabama that the hunting experience is lesser than it used to be. And a 30 year old man's "used to be" won't even be the same as a 50 year old man's used to be. But again, there's a consensus agreement that something is "lesser" about it.

Just my personal stance on why I have a lesser experience today is because of more hunters. I don't hear anywhere near as much gobbling as I used to, but I still hear enough to enjoy turkey hunting when my anxiety meter isn't pegged by other hunters. Will I get beat to my spot? Am I gonna get walked in on? Did someone come in here during the week when I wasn't able? And there was only 1 bird gobbling down this road to start with, so if another hunter DOES kill him, well damn now I gotta start all over with another bird (and quite often I haven't heard another bird anywhere else). NONE of those factors existed when we were in our hay-day. It literally consumes my thoughts about turkey hunting...when I hear "turkey hunting" today, I don't think of the good parts, I instantly think "Good God there's a bajillion trucks everywhere!!!" It's just barely any fun anymore because you have to split the damn pie so many ways.

I know a lot of hunters don't feel that way, you may just have another personality. But again, I don't worry about predators and nest raiders, or weather, or disease, habitat differences, or ANYTHING besides other hunters. Because all of those things appear to be exactly the same as they used to be. MORE hunters is the only thing that's inarguably different than back then, and it's the only thing that ever affects my hunting. Your mileage may vary.