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

So we killed even more than the covid year that the dcnr assured us was an anomaly due to so many hunters in the woods. Just looking at the harvest numbers, the awful decline in turkey populations doesn't seem to be real.

CNC, that's a good map that you put together!

DCNR has been proven wrong? No way

I agree.....it looks pretty obvious that decoys had an impact. Something to keep in mind when comparing the numbers taken by the old survey and the new numbers is that everyone isnt participating in game check......The old numbers took a sample and extrapolated it out and came up with a number that hypothetically has everyone participating.......The new game check numbers are probably 30% short of actual.....maybe more..........The trend data is likely still good though over the last 4 years.

I agree......at least over the last 4 years we seem to be running fairly stable across most of the state......I think if you go back in time though like ridgestalker pointed out.....we probably have had some time periods when we saw at least some minor decline across the board

I can’t begin to explain how many birds were along this Creek bottom in the 90s and early 2000s. Not even a tenth of the birds are here now.

I’m hearing the areas in decline are definitely seeing it in reality and they were infested 15 years ago.

I’m in agreement with you on the decoys, but the kill numbers can’t be compared to the years since game check started. Two different methods.

Take into account - the most pre-season killing I can ever remember according to the bragging and chirping - continued lack of respect for the dcnr - no fear of an invisible enforcement staff - and nobody scared of the consequences anyway -

It would be absolutely impossible to extrapolate, calculate, or multiply by percentage - any accurate numbers of any kind. Just my take.

And that's exactly what I predicted would happen when they announced mandatory GC. A random sample is way more accurate than a system that requires every turkey when it's going to be impossible to know about every turkey. It sure looks like the population is increasing based on the GC numbers, but it's entirely possible that the increase is mostly due to more hunters participating in GC. My perception is that the harvest probably is increasing, but it's just a guess and nobody knows. They took a system that worked and replaced it with one with no chance of working.

It is concerning to see those counties on the eastern side where the harvest is declining. I hunt some in one of those counties and that place has followed the trend down. But it's not any great mystery why; it's all about the habitat. We used to be surrounded by forests; now we are surrounded by 5 yr old cutover and 10 acre home lots. The turkey population goes down when that happens.

My club killed 3 on 4000 acres in Jackson County (Paint Rock Valley). This was my 7th year in the club, and it has never been this bad. I didn't hunt it much, but this is the 1st year I've never heard a turkey gobble or seen or turkey on that property. I know dead birds don't tell you how many live birds you have, but game check, no check, survey, whatever, our place has gone continually downhill since 2020.

We don’t have a 1/3 of what we had on Skyline 20 years ago.

I've only hunted Skyline once, but I would wager it gets hit the hardest with out of state hunters over any other WMA. There was a guy from Kansas that spent a week hunting Cahaba the opening week. Why he would choose Cahaba is beyond me. He must have gotten some bad intel or he just likes a challenge.

You can thank Dave owens and fellow YouTubers for that…

On the flip side of that…..I think if you look at the growth that is occurring across such a large area of south Alabama it would likely point to some kind of environmental condition as being the root cause……..either rainfall or temp……..I’m going with rainfall as being the culprit at play……I’ve been looking at rainfall maps trying to find a obvious pattern but its tough to say for sure……What it appears to me though is that we’ve had really wet March’s and April’s…….like so wet that it would have probably been difficult for anyone to burn during these time periods over the last 4 years or so……Maybe its something else about the rainfall pattern that's causing it, I’m just sayin.

Something to ponder over about the area in decline..........The shoe sure looks like it fits.

The area with the biggest decline, coincides with the public lands that got the most air time from youtubers......

It also harbors national forest, that is primarily mature timber, with very little diversity.

Honest question.... Am I the only one who believes hunters are the greatest reason turkeys are in decline? Why are we so afraid to consider we are the problem? If you want to instantly tick people off, suggest that we're simply overkilling in relation to poult survival.

I do not believe it's predators or nest raiders, nor habitat loss or change, nor disease or climate. It's us. The ONLY thing I see different over my 49 years of life is the exponential increase in turkey hunters. Here's my hypothesis....
Simple thesis statement: I hunted much of the late 80's and all of the 90's, and nothing ever changed. There were only a handful of guys who turkey hunted in all of the woods I ranged on, and I knew basically all of them. I don't remember having anxiety about getting beat to a spot on public land back then, and there were always multiple turkeys gobbling anywhere you went. I see no more predators today than I did then, and the habitat is identical, the weather is identical. There's only ONE thing that's different.....

About the time we say turkey numbers (and hunter satisfaction) started a decline, in my assessment, it coincided with the explosion of the commercialization and marketization of the hunting industry. TV, social media, and just a modern-progressive marketing of all things hunting and fishing. Eventually, everyone I know turkey hunts. There's a truck parked at every gate, pulled over anywhere they can. Out of state tags camping at our WMAs for weeks, pounding our turkeys all week while we're at work. All these boys saving their vacation for turkey season. My social media shows numerous dead turkeys every single day. We are killing the everloving @#$% out of them.

Stay with me.... Turkeys are a dominance hierarchy animal, not all of them breed. You've got a few dominant birds in an area, doing most of the gobbling and breeding. If you kill him today, how long does it take the subordinates to recognize this, then establish a new pecking order and begin breeding again? Or do they at all that particular season? It's far-fetched, but it's plausible, that we're killing those dominant birds in quick fashion all over the place (because they're getting pounded every day by burgeoning numbers of hunters), and the overall flock breeding is affected. Perhaps it's only a fractional affect, but over 20-25 years?.... So we're killing them in larger numbers than ever, coupled with less/no breeding by subordinate birds, and here we stand today with a mess on our hands.

Just my thoughts.

Yep……whatever the culprit is it seems there’s a high likelihood that it revolves around Talladega National Forest as a main player. It would be interesting to compare notes from Talladega versus Conecuh…..

Here’s a comparison of this season versus 2020…..which is the first season in our 4 year span…….You can see that there have been some massive increases in some counties in the southern portion of the state……Tallapoosa, Talladega, Clay being the biggest losers......Lamar, Fayette, and Jackson could probably be called on the bubble of "decline" depending on where things go from here