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

I changed it up just a little bit this time since there seems to be a lot of early success……This is a comparison of each counties current harvest to its highest harvest in the last 5 years………..

This is compared to the same amount of hunting days?

You mean to tell me….that marshall county is the highest on that map..maybe i missed something..that map is bull crap unless it means they kilt 5 in 5 years an now they kilt 7..thats about how manh id expect to see killed here..including yard birds somebody bought at the trade day an took a picture with it to put on facebook..like..75% of our county aint got “A” turkey..much less huntable amounts..da heck is goin own😐

No this is a comparison against the highest season total in the last 5 years for each county......For example, Choctaw county's highest harvest in the last 5 years is 300 birds and they have currently killed 170.......They are at 57% of that total which is what shows on the map......If a county makes it to 100% then it will be a 6 year high

The highest harvest for Marshall for the last five years is 132 birds......They've currently checked in 79 which equates to 60% of that total......Apparently somebody is having a good start to the year.....at least by Marshall Co standards

So the season is off to a banging start?

Amazing that so many have killed since the state ruined the season by backing it up, they were gonna be gobbled out, too hot to hunt and the leaves were already on the trees making ot too thick to hunt.

I haven’t even been yet….

All of those things have happened except the part about being gobbled out. Instead of spreading those turkey kills over a 17 day period, they got hammered over a 5 day period. I suspect about the same number of turkeys were killed; they were just killed in a much shorter period of time. If you were working during the week and you are trying to hunt the same turkeys that others were hunting, you were hunting dead turkeys.

My neighbors have already killed a dozen, which is a very good year for them if they don't kill another one. They will probably get a few more, but all the easy ones are dead. That's the way it's always been by the beginning of April; it just happened in a shorter period of time than it did with the 3/15 opener.

So IMO, the same number of turkeys are dead, the only thing lost is hunter opportunity. Did it help the turkeys? The TFT biologists say the research shows it didn't matter at all. But it made some folks feel better and helped Chuck win awards, so I guess it was worth it.

Must be those good hatches

On that note this is an interesting map…….make of it what you will…….This map is basically a measurement of the variance in annual harvest…… Some counties show a lot more variability…..For example Barbour might kill 540 one year and 320 the next while a county like Calhoun only ranges 300-350……..So I took the highest harvest in the last 5 year for each county and subtracted the lowest then divided by the average……There are definitely patterns that formed……

Why the distinct difference in southeast Alabama versus southwest??

Harvest Variability Map

Uh uh

No birds anywhere, I definitely wouldn't waste time in Marshall county

I’ll add this too about the question of why is there a distinct difference in southeast vs southwest Alabama in harvest variability………The southeastern counties arent seeing the same good hatch years working through this season that most everyone else seems to be having……..A lot of counties are currently running 45-60% of “average” while counties like Bullock, Macon, Pike, Barbour, etc are only running 25-35%......They don’t seem to be having the same good boom year that many other counties apparently had……..I have a theory as to why and it revolves around predator density

You do have a theory for everything

There’s not the same abundance of tall prairie grass in the southwestern part of the state driving rodent abundance……..A lot of the resetting of succession over there is done through timber cutting and if allowed to resprout comes back in broadleaf dominated understories in the years immediately after cutting…….Its a different understory structure across a lot of those stands versus the grass prairies we have over here across the quail plantation belt………They likely don’t have the same landscape level predator density as a result……That's the theory anyways

OR........The habitat in the "Quail Belt" could be so beneficial for turkeys, that the population has less peaks and valleys than other areas of the state.

That's the opposite of what the harvest numbers show......Game check data shows them as having the most peaks and valleys in harvest......The way I figure it they have a lot of great brooding habitat because of all of the burning that has just taken place that's resprouting.......The problem comes in with year 2 after a burn.....All of that grass gets so tall and thick that it becomes unusable except on the edge where hens are vulnerable to the high coyote population......Also they have a lot of avian predators for poults to deal with as well.......What probably happens over time is that the "growth years" require those weather conditions to line up right for both nesting and brooding .......When it finally does every so often though they have a big boom because of all of the good brooding habitat thats waiting......What they probably need the most is relief from coyotes, bobcats, and foxes disturbing nesting and killing hens in all of those thick grass stands they're nesting in the edge of

What a lot of folks arent taking into consideration is that stuff like this ^^^^ is what is being called “habitat” …….This is what a lot of the quail belt looks like and this isnt ideal habitat……It’s a bastardized version of it that causes its own issues with excessive amounts of predators and limited usable space……Turkeys populations have a lot of pressure applied to them as a result except when those weather conditions roll around that suppresses it……I’m guessing that the reason they arent seeing the same boom this season as southwest Alabama is that the plantation belt has a longer time period between growth years…..They may be hitting on something like 1 in 8 while the southwest counties are hitting 1 in 4…..and the plantation belt probably just missed this one......The more constant replenishing of birds is probably why the southwestern counties have a more stable harvest

Here take Barbour county’s numbers for the last 6 years as an example……

Barbour.....444..... 407..... 542..... 432..... 327..... 375....

Without making labels this is going backwards in time starting with last season……I think the GC numbers probably pick up at the tail end of Barbour county’s last cycle…….Those 375 and 327 years are probably the tail end of the population slowly declining since the previous growth that occurred however many years before this……The “good hatches” actually happened in those years but then worked their way through the hunting cycle with the 432 and 542 years…….and now we’re on the back side of that with populations slowly declining again until the next growth cycle hits……Another 10 years and we’ll be able to look back and point out when it happened……It doesn’t appear like it will be this year……Harvest may trend down into the 300’s again before it does