One thing I hadn't thought about was the fact that they started bring daylight savings time in before turkey season even opens. That knocked a lot of folks out of getting to go before work, and is something that is bound to have reduced the harvest.
No question that Ivan did a whole lot of habitat destruction in the places it hit. When large areas get clearcut and replanted, its gotta reduce the turkey population. My farm was clearcut in 1977 and replanted in 1979. What made it bad was that thousands of acres around it were cut about the same time. The result was that from 1984 until 1990 there wasn't a turkey killed on our place. As the pines grew up, the turkeys came back.
