Matt, we appreciate all you guys do. Hopefully it is just a cyclical thing and will straighten out in a year or two.
Last year, I hunted 18 mornings and heard 1 turkey gobble (once in the tree and once on the ground) on our 940 acres.
This year has been completely different, as I've heard birds on our land 12 out of 15 mornings. No rhyme or reason for any of it.
(BTW, this hunter mortality deal and turkeys being the problem needs to be looked at. We need to keep as many hunters as we can)

I've seen and heard decent numbers this year. It's been real tough hunting because the ones I've heard have gobbled a time or two and shut down totally. I hunt until 12 at least on most days I go, so they may start back up at some point during the day, but it's not in the mornings.
Notice I said decent numbers. I hardly ever hunted and didn't hear anything, but the 4 and 5 bird mornings were really rare this year. Also, I saw a 2 or 3 day period where gobblers we're going crazy (due to the hens starting to set is my thought) and that was it. Normally there's a two week period where they are waking up alone and committing suicide.

Matt, give us some actual numbers of percentage of hunters who kill a limit, until then discussing a limit reduction is pointless. Specifically with no way to enforce it. Habitat, predators, and possible disease are a much bigger issue to me, until the state presents some actual harvest data and kills per hunter. Until then, dropping the limit is simply a feel good mechanism

I'm going to say somewhere less than 2% kill a 5 bird limit.

Atoler, I have to agree. Matt, I'm sure you are aware and not naive enough to believe that dropping that number will change anything. Surely those working with you aren't either. Once data shows there is a large decline, or if it does, then the best way to drop the amount of turkeys dying due to hunters has to be to shorten the season I would think. Unless they start hiring a lot more of you guys and implement some sort of tagging system that can hold people more accountable, I don't see it changing. I don't know if even reducing the days will make a tremendous impact. There are several folks out there that think if a turkey gobbles, that they ought to hunt him. But I do believe there are less like that than those who would stop at a certain number while season is still in. Y'all have a rough road ahead of y'all with all of this. I wish you guys and gals the best, and hope we get it fixed if it needs fixin.

For those of you who think gobbler harvest doesn't effect the population, what do you think would happen, if AL turned it's hunters loose for three consecutive seasons, in KS with a 5 bird limit. Serious question. I can already tell you the outcome would be devastating.

I think that AL's very liberal bag limit has provided the wrong perception to several generations of hunters who have come to think it doesn't matter. Kill as many as you want. Heck we have the highest population of any state in the country with the highest bag. Apparently we have done a great job convincing people that bag limits don't matter. We had a buck per day every day of the season for decades. Was that a good management practice? As populations and hunter desires change so will the regulations.

I do fully agree that the best way to change anything, if it's changed at all, is to push the season back or decrease the length.

According to the survey the last several years average harvest per hunter has remained at close to one per season. I don't have the information in front of me, but I promise to my name that I'm going to find out what percentage of people surveyed killed a limit. And that's all it will be. Only those surveyed. Also, I'd bet there are a lot of hunters you could add to the category if you included anyone who took 3 or more turkeys per year.

I know hunting pressure is far more than it used to be. Heck private land, IMO, is probably hunted harder than most public land, from what I have seen lately. I can drive around on private land and see more hunters than I'll check on a WMA hunt.

Keep another thing in mind. North AL is not what south AL is. Land is divided and broken into smaller ownerships, more development and disturbance, and a higher population of people. You south AL boys who are hunting several thousand contiguous acres have to realize that don't exist up here near as frequently as down there.

I don't think a 3 bird limit would change anything. Most hunters that can kill a limit will not stop at the limit. Especially if your only required to write it on a piece of paper.

I think you are very close with that estimate.

I may be the one Matt is referring to with the conspiracy talk, but when you know the state has that info and they flatly refuse to release it, well, it makes me wonder. If only 2% kill a limit, then it doesn't take a genius to realize that changing it will have no effect on the turkey population.

Matt, thanks for getting on here and posting. I would be the first to say that if there are indeed areas of the state when most of the gobblers are killed before the hens are bred, and that results in hens not being bred, then something needs to be done. I have never hunted in such a place myself, but maybe they do exist in the state. But cutting the state limit would do nothing to help those places. The ONLY way to help those places is to shorten the season there, and I'd sure be in favor of shortening it in those areas if hens are not being bred due to a lack of available gobblers.

I guess I have been truly blessed this season, but I heard more gobbling than normal and had the best season I've had in several years. I hunted Perry, Coosa, and Tallapoosa counties and the turkey population is still very good in all the areas I hunted. I limited out on 4/2, and probably could have sooner if I had tried harder. I called one in for my uncle to kill Tuesday morning and we heard 3 other turkeys gobble that morning; one probably gobbled 100 times. Surefire is hunting at my farm this weekend and heard one gobble on the roost this afternoon. I predict that one will die in the morning. If he does, it will just mean there is one less gobbler on the place; it won't affect the nesting success of the hens at all.

I'm glad to hear that no significant changes are planned anytime soon. My turkey hunting career is drawing to an end, but I still would hate to see the AL system changed because of political reasons when the system we have has worked so well for at least 50 years. A generous season and limit leads to turkeys being a valued resource. Low limits lead to them being hated by the farmers.

Matt, my statement really has nothing to do with how gobbler harvest affects the overall population. My point was that dropping the limit to 3 probably will have no impact on the scope of birds killed. But If you and the state want to push a lower limit, fine. Just present facts on how many people actually kill more than that as it stands. That is my biggest issue. Of course, killing gobblers does not help the population. Does it hurt it significantly? I don't think so, not in most cases. But if you could present a valid argument, I would certainly listen.

In central and north Alabama, I've seen a decline in the number of gobbling birds in the last few years. Simply taking public land as an example, south Alabama wmas have been much much easier for me to kill a bird on in the last few years. I think it is possible we have a big problem coming in the next few years, similar to what parts of Tennessee are experiencing. I just don't buy that reducing the limit by a bird or two will have a great impact.

You posted while I was typing, and I was gonna drop out of the thread and leave it at what I said. But some of your illustrations just don't seem valid to me. The open land of KS, combined with incredibly stupid birds, is nothing like hunting in AL. What would be the results of a 5 bird limit there? Well, first, to compare it to AL you would need to eliminate the fall season that allows hunters to kill several of either sex. After that, I expect a pretty good % of the mature gobblers would get killed. But since the AL jake harvest is extremely low, I'd think those AL hunters would pass on the KS jakes too and there would be plenty of 2 year old gobblers around the next season. With no fall season, and a 5 bird spring season, I doubt KS would be a whole lot different than it is now, even considering how much easier their turkeys are to kill.

I also don't think your comparison to the one a day buck limit is at all valid. One buck can breed only a very limited number of does, so the buck-doe ratio needs to be reasonable to get the does bred. One gobbler can breed 20 hens in a day, and then be ready for 20 more the next day. It takes very few gobblers to breed the hens. You know that; why would you use such an illustration?

I agree that shortening the season in places where its needed is the way to control harvest, and I agree that north AL is not south and central AL. Make whatever regs you need for north AL to protect the flock; I don't hunt there so it won't bother me. But please don't penalize those who have worked hard to have turkeys, and have them, just because an area 200 miles away is having problems.

Thanks again for posting here!

I'm going to bed PCP.

I wasn't trying to compare turkey and deer management as being similar. Only trying to make a point that just because we've done a particular thing one way forever doesn't mean it was the best thing to do

More later. When I wake up I'm sure I'll have to spend most of Saturday replying.

We have more gobblers now than we have ever had. We had at least 21 gobblers on 1500 acres that we knew of, sightings and cam pics. We also have more hens than we have ever had. That being said, it has been a ruff season. We have heard a lot of gobbling. But calling up and killing them has ben tuff. Most of the time we have been working birds hens go to them and they shut down. Killed my second bird of the season yesterday and there were two gobblers together. Killed my first bird the second day of season (North Bama) and there were two gobblers together. We had them in the fall and we have had them in the spring but they have moved off our property a lot. Maybe May will not be so wet and they will have a good hatch.

Go on to bed and sleep well!

I'll be around tomorrow, and then plan to be gone for 2 weeks, so y'all can reduce the limit while I'm gone and I won't even be around to complain.

And thanks for promising to get the data on # of limits from the hunter survey. I don't quite follow you when you said this:

>>>I promise to my name that I'm going to find out what percentage of people surveyed killed a limit. And that's all it will be. Only those surveyed. Also, I'd bet there are a lot of hunters you could add to the category if you included anyone who took 3 or more turkeys per year.<<<

The number of limits killed in the state can indeed be determined by the hunter survey, within the limits of the study, of course. And it should be relatively easy to determine the number that also killed 4, and thus figure out how many turkeys a reduction in limit to 3 would theoretically "save."

The study put out by your department says this:

>>>A measure of the degree of the uncertainty or “sampling error” associated with each estimate
can be determined by analysis of the variability in the survey data. The statistical term for this
measure is the “standard error” of the estimate. Standard errors tend to vary with the
magnitude of their estimates and are difficult to use for general comparison of the level of
uncertainty among estimates. A better index for judging the level of uncertainty is the relative
standard error, i.e., the ratio of the standard error over the estimate. Relative standard errors,
expressed on a percent basis, are provided in the tables along with the estimates and standard
errors for this survey. An estimate with a low percent standard error is more reliable and has
less uncertainty associated with it. Estimates with a percentage standard error less than 15%
are reliable enough to be useful in making management decisions.<<<

The standard error for the total state turkey harvest was 7.2%. I believe that the survey will give us an estimate of the number of limits in the state that will be a worthwhile number that is scientifically valid. It might be off by up to 7.2%, but that could mean that the survey says 100 limits were taken when the actual number is 107. Of course, I realize its not quite that simple, but that's close to being an accurate explanation. Whatever the number is, it will give us a better idea of how much real effect the 5 bird limit has on the turkeys.

I still don't think the folks above you will let you post the number. Prove me wrong.

Weather and nesting success was bad the last couple years.

I think that is a large part of the problem as well. Matt, I asked earlier, but would you agree with that statement?

It doesn't take but just a couple of poor hatches to really take a toll on the turkey population. I was fortunate enough to hunt a MS River club between the levees for 6 years while I was in school at Ole Miss. Just during that short period I was able to see the cyclical nature of turkey populations in full effect as the result of hatch success. Those confined clubs are a microcosm of the general population in my opinion except they are at an even higher risk because of the extremely limited turkey habitat in the MS Delta. Matt if you all haven't done any studies of those clubs, I think it would be interesting for you all.

The first two years I hunted the place were unbelievable. You would hear about 10 birds a morning and there were turkeys everywhere. That second spring though the MS River flooded and remained flooded for an extended period. The hatch was very poor that spring. The next spring was still pretty decent numbers of birds, but we saw zero jakes all year. Hunting continued as normal that year, and several gobblers were killed. Then that spring the River flooded again for the second consecutive year, and the hatch was very poor again.

That next spring bird numbers were awful. You would only hear 1 or 2 birds in the mornings and no jakes again. The river flooded early that year and they called off the season on the club. It actually did recede a little earlier that year and there was some nesting success. The next year was terrible again with only one or two gobbling birds but there were some jakes there gobbling as well.

The next spring was much better with decent numbers of gobbling birds but obviously they were all 2 year olds. The river did not flood that spring so they had another great hatch and by the following year things were quickly getting back close to normal.

There's a great book about these MS River clubs called East of the Slash by Wade Wineman. It covers some of the population fluctuations and how quickly the birds are able to rebound. It's definitely worth a read. I personally think that what we are experiencing has more to do with poor hatches and awful weather this spring than a problem with our limit. It sounds like the northern 1/3 of the state may be a different scenario, but I believe that to be true for the rest of the state.

Predators play a huge roll.

Last time I checked everything loves turkey meat except a vegetarian.

I believe gobbler harvest affects population. I've hunted places where this has taken place. I seriously doubt the State knows how many people kill the limit every year. Matt good luck with the research.

Great post crenshaw. I have a buddy that hunted turkey hunted Tara wildlife on the Mississippi river several years ago and he said it was amazing. After the great flood they shutdown all turkey hunting on tara,9000 acres, and still didn't offer turkey hunts for this spring. This is copied from Tara's website

"With poor nesting conditions due to high water in 2008 through 2011, we have had to postpone hunting until Turkey numbers are able to recover. We will not offer turkey hunts in 2015."

I hunted a place in North Bama a few years ago that was covered up in turkeys then it went south and by that I mean BAD! Went from killing 4-5 every year to being lucky to hear 1 or 2 a season. That was about 8 or 9 years ago. Then there was a good hatch or two and it got back to normal. Everyone was killing 3 and 4 year old birds with no two year old birds being killed for a couple years. If it is bad where you are hunting it will turn around. Enjoy the good years!

Ever heard the saying about turkey hunting?

When it's good it's GOOD, but when it's bad it's BAAAAAD!

Doing well PCP, but I couldn't stand it anymore