Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs The Turkey Numbers '26

Graphs are useless. Nobody knows and won't ever. You must love making them though so carry on.

4/6 Update.......Back to this season's totals.......Again this is compared to the highest total in the last 6 years for each individual county......This is showing you which counties are having a "boom" year......Likely gonna see 7 year highs in a lot of counties before its over

Comparison to highest annual total

Not to confuse anyone but here are the current totals compared to an “average” year……Pretty much the same pattern………

Comparison to average


I’ll wait until the season is over when I post the final numbers to show the comparisons of a few these counties……but when you look at the numbers for each individual county over the last 7 years it looks pretty apparent that some are seeing less frequent boom years than others…..Some counties like Bullock, Montgomery, and Barbour for example will only have 1 boom year in the last seven after this season is over while counties like Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Pickens, and Choctaw will see 2…….Basically those counties seem to be running 1 in 3…. or 1 in 4….. while Bullock, Montgomery, and Barbour are at least 1 in 7……We wont know for sure until those counties have another boom year but that’s pretty much what its looking like……just sayin.

Are you able to mine the data to see what days for any particular county have the highest reported harvest each year?

That would be good info to have if you planning ahead to take vacation days

You mean kinda like this??? ......Its pretty much the same for everyone. First 10-14 days see a big flurry of kills then it falls off from there.....There's a secondary spike that occurs toward the end of April for a lot of folks

Well dang, I was hoping the best was yet to come

One variable to your "boom year" idea is 2020... when there were far more hunters in the woods that spring than ever before (and since). And it stands to reason that counties with a higher population would likely spike more in that particular year. Take Tuscaloosa for instance...

It doesn’t appear to have really made much difference when you look at the numbers across the board…..There may have been more hours logged in hunting but it doesn’t appear to have equated to more total birds being killed……It looks just like any other year with some counties being up and some being down…..Here’s some counties to compare……This is starting with last year and ending with 2020

Barbour.......... 444 .....407..... 542 .....432..... 327..... 375
Montgomery .. 217..... 219 .....301 .....200 .....174..... 229
Bullock.......... 222..... 255..... 322..... 248..... 173 ......268
Crenshaw ...... 248..... 278..... 306 .....241..... 219 .....217


Sumter ....... 319 .....343..... 285..... 276 .....262 .....337
Tuscaloosa... 349..... 358..... 375..... 326..... 348 .....373
Pickens ....... 413..... 397..... 397..... 356 .....317 .....402
Choctaw ...... 241..... 300..... 256..... 271..... 281 .....302

You have no idea if that's true or not. It could be 2020 was a "down year" overall from a hunter-kill ratio... and it took more hunting days per hunter to kill a bird. Or, it could have been that more birds were harvested, but many new hunters simply didn't report kills. Like with the deer hunting thing, it's interesting to see what the stats say... but drawing hard and fast conclusions from them are nearly impossible due to the many variables.

Ok

4/13 Update.......Just a reminder that the rest of the updates will be a comparison of the current total to "average".......Any counties in green are already above average for the year......Counties with asterisks represent the highest harvest in the last 7 years

Anyone have any theories on why southeast Alabama is having a down year while everyone else seems to be booming??

Same reason southern parts of Illinois get hammered by out of state hunters. Shorter drive to hit the first public lands they come to. Add the hunting public and Dave Owen’s videos showing them hunting North Alabama and now non residents from up north are hunting up here too. Damn people everywhere like I’ve never seen it before. But those out of state guys are used to checking their animals in, so my guess is that those guys traveling are more likely to report their kills.

This makes the pattern a little easier to see......Its actually running a line across the middle of the state down to the southeast corner....

It's because the dang season comes in so late down there. I was getting pics of gobblers strutting with hens in early February and it peaked somewhere around the end of the first week in March. The season come in on the 25th and they were on the tail end of things. I know several guys in clubs all around ours and nobody has heard a turkey gobble in two weeks. I went down there this past weekend to pull all my gear for the year and was told that the turkeys were completely done and had grouped back up in male and female segregated groups that weren't having anything to do with each other. We were running hens off of nests the second week of the season.

March 25th is too freaking late for South Alabama.

There's an obvious pattern that's running a strip across the state on the color coded map......like a corridor.....It even has a nice buffer around it.....I want to match it up to some kind of weather pattern but I'll be danged if I can come up with one to match.....I kinda wonder if its another link down the chain and something to do with a predator population change.....Maybe like a big boom of coyotes or hawks across the red area or something.......Maybe???......Whatever it is its a large scale pattern

Do number of hunter come into play? I know on private land there’s no way of tell how many hunt on any give day. The WMA and other register/sign in before you go may be a way to get that #. I hunt Madison and Jackson co. There is a parade line heading in on Co rd 65 between 4:00 to 5:00 most mornings the first 3 weeks. It does slow down, Friday and Saturdays are busy. At times I’ll come in through Huntland Tn.its still lots of traffic.

Here you go if you want something to really try and wrap your brain around......Here's the same color coded map for the last 6 seasons showing an annual comparison to "average" for each county.....Here's a color key:

<85% = Red Stripes (Way Below Average)
86-95% = Red (Below Average)
95-105% = Yellow (Average)
106-115% = Green (Above Average)
>115% = Green Stripes (Way Above Average)


2025


2024


2023


2022


2021


2020

Lets see if this makes that a little mo easier to see......This is including this year's graph going back in time from left to right........2026-2020

Now tell what the pattern be??