Our place was clearcut in 1977 and by 1984 we had given up turkey hunting on the place. Not only was our place cut, but nearly all the land around us was cut. There just weren't any turkeys there in the spring. There were turkeys a few miles down the road, but we didn't have any.

By 1990 they had returned, and we've had turkeys ever since. As soon as the pines shaded the ground enough to make it reasonably clean under them, the turkeys started back using them. Since then, population hasn't varied a whole lot from year to year.

I didn't mean to give the impression that I thought the change to pines had no impact on turkeys; it certainly does. My point was that lots of smart people thought turkeys could not survive without big hardwoods forests for the winter. I thought that myself.

Turkeys proved us wrong.