Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs gobbler home ranges in spring

im pretty sure the roaming part could different from place to place . animal is a animal they get what they need in a small area they stay in the smaller area be predator or prey .



like you its been the same where ive hunted . the turkeys didnt seem to roam that way . in places it seemed they did have patterens for part of the year then a different one for the other part . then for some it was pretty much the same tree ever night . weather would change up roosting .

ive seen a lot of gooblers in the same spot at dinner time ever day just strutting his ass off . or so i thought it was the same ones ?

And don’t forget and leave out context. Aka cherry picking

Uncle called me one afternoon years ago and said 2 gobblers just walked across the pasture come up here in the morning and kill one of them. He almost never saw a turkey on his 60 acres of mostly pasture and a 20 acre draw on the west side. I thought what a waste of time. No reason for those turkeys to be there tomorrow, but I went anyway. Went to the 20 acre draw not expecting to hear anything and at daylight both sounded off. Set up and was having breakfast and coffee with them an hour later with a gobbler dead. I asked him why he thought those turkeys would still be there this morning. He said they were walking and looking. His little draw was a likely looking place to have a turkey hen so the gobblers would give it a day to see if there was, if not they would start walking and looking again. I've seen that play out many many times after he taught me that lesson 30 some odd years ago. And those moving and looking turkeys can be some of the easiest to kill.

yep, I took a movement ecology class in grad school and it is very interesting how different phyla in the animal kingdom act in similar dispersal patterns. You almost always have that same % of long range dispersal (most of the time it is young males). It would be very interesting to know the age classes and the range size in this study. My guess is the older birds (>3 or4 years) don't have as large of ranges. But, there are so many other variables to consider. My guess is that this study relies on a lot of pseudo replication making their sample size seem much larger than it probably is. That is what happens most of the time in wildlife studies anyway. Got to get those good AIC numbers or low P-values and to hell with experimental design.

The study site was in South Carolina.......That seems pretty applicable to much of Alabama, no?

We conducted research on the Savannah River Site (SRS), a 78,000-ha U.S. Department of Energy property located in the Atlantic Coastal plain of South Carolina, USA. Approximately 94% of SRS was forested, dominated by loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), longleaf pine (P. palustris), and slash pine (P. elliottii) managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service for timber production and wildlife habitat, particularly the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker (Leuconotopicus borealis), which involved use of prescribed fire applied on a 3–5-year rotation (White & Gaines, 2000). Remaining forest cover consisted primarily of bottomland hardwood forests along drainages and the Savannah River. Interspersed within the forest matrix were several nuclear industrial and research facilities, with non-developed openings consisting of powerline rights-of-way and wildlife food plots.

Read what I highlighted. I didn't say it they did and one of which was chamberlain. That’s why I mention cherry-picking. You gotta take the study in its entirety!



Doesn’t apply across the board. I mentioned I knew of an hardwood tract where that held true. I hunted it back in the early 90s and those birds were never in the same spot. I moved on to ag fields and clusters of hardwoods where you could watch and see the birds. It was obvious they were the same birds. I seriously doubt the exact same number of birds and ratios of hens to gobblers cruise that area over 8 miles of creek bottom.

I could see where sampling from an unhunted population might skew travel data as well because I would think you would have a much different ratio of gobblers to hens with no gobblers being killed yet hens still suffering the same likely mortality as a hunted population……The extra competition amongst males should cause more traveling for the average gobbler I would suspect.

Still though, I’ve yet to see any evidence that would lead someone to believe breeding is being negatively impacted…..Is there any study that shows nesting timing having a lot of variability?.....Seems like they all show a pretty consistent average nesting date don’t they whether hunted or not?.....I’ll give you that I can see where a hen might choose the dominant male to breed to if given the choice……But apparently if she’s ready to breed she’ll settle for the next available pretty quickly or you’d be seeing differences in nest timing of the hunted and non-hunted areas….correct??

I don’t know how one could have a perfect control or even if you have to? I think there are so many variables that influence the outcome and year to year is different. I’ve not seen many poults yet and lot of single hens. By now I’d usually would have seen numerous hens with poults. The two hens I’ve seen with poults have had very few. 1 poult today and 3 last week. Weather? Predation? Whatever?

I do know in my area a few things that have changed

Way more turkey hunters
Way more turkey hunters hunting all day

Back when we were hard at it we were done well before 10
My cutoff to get home and cleaned up and open my studio by 10:30 I could push it to 9 if I had to but most days I was leaving by 8. Jerry would leave too so birds had no bother the rest of the day. If I wanted fro try an afternoon I as in the creek on TVA land. That was usually trying o roost one though.

The thing I saw on FB but seems to be more scolding is hunters haplessly busting a hen off the nest and taking pics of the nest and posting on fb. It was pretty often but now they get scolded thank goodness.

Times have changed

How would y’all feel about a noon cutoff?
I just see so many similarities between turkey and duck hunting as far as popularity and the competition of being the it on social media.

It’s both good and bad at the same time I’m just curious as how to temper that. Maybe there is nothing to do but let it run its course?

Back in subject I do believe the study has a lot of merit. “But it depends” is the only point I’m trying to make

The true nature of the wild turkey will never be known. They are subject to do anything you can and can't think of.

Some have random roost and others definitely stay in a very small area. I believe when they bust up and establish pecking order the older birds select the areas with most hens and prime nesting habitat. The 2 year old birds end up high on side of mtn or in areas of marginal habitat. The older birds I’m lucky to kill are often just above fields etc and gobble very little. The younger birds seem to roam about a lot more. That’s in the mtns on very pressured birds. I’m going with the older the gobbler the smaller his range.

Don't forget the roaming bands of jakes that run off the older gobblers. I've got some "bad" problems with those suckers always running off the birds I'm calling. Last year I had a group of 17 jakes. This year I've seen different groups of 11, 13, and 15.

So are you saying I can’t trust these “I’ve been hunting this same turkey for 4 years” stories??

yeap you can, same with honey holes , if that term is still used these days . lol