Where did they get the numbers for 18 & 19? From those surveys that everybody fills out and returns? I’ve still never gotten 1 and I’ve been hunting turkeys here since 93. My daughter has gotten 1 the last 2 years. She’s 5.
"George Washington didn't use his freedom of speech to defeat the British, he shot them."
We have a farm that I killed a turkey on when I was seven, and I am now 32. There has never been a year in my life when there hasnt been a flock of turkeys there that hasn’t had anywhere from 3-7 gobblers and Jake’s and hens. I haven’t killed a turkey off of this 400 acre in three years and this year was the first year that there wasn’t a group of birds in the back of this field. This is one of many. I kept feeders going on two other farms to just try to keep the ones we had to not die. I’m worried.
"And ignoring people on here....that's like being home schooled. Just say you're not ready to face life." Highstrung
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. -Tecumseh-
Plenty of people aren’t going to check their birds online, and they know that. What we should see, over a five year period, is a trend. Assuming the same percentage of folks do and don’t check their birds year after year, you should see trends. What percentage is killed when, etc.
I dont know, and we won’t know how much impact you can have through trapping. What I think we can universally agree on, is that it won’t hurt. I don’t live close enough to my places to be able to trap coyotes, but I’m giving the coons and possums hell. It is an easy thing to do, especially if you have corn piles/deer feeders. From late December until we empty them in early February, I catch the hell out of them on feeders and streams.
Another thing we have started doing, is leaving the oats in the food plots, and leaving the grass on the sides of the roads until August. It gives the poults a place to escape.
We all need to be intentional about what we are doing. If you aren’t concerned, you’re not paying attention
Them that don't know him won't like him, and them that do sometimes won't know how to take him
He ain't wrong, he's just different, and his pride won't let him do things to make you think he's right
They don't put Championship rings on smooth hands
Have to agree with trkyklr on being intentional. I see clubs bush hogging their old food plots after turkey season ends and that’s a terrible time. Leave your cover out there until August. Reg wise, I’m good with bumping the season back or whatever it takes. If you ride around the upstate you just see a lot less birds than 5 to 10 years ago. We have to do something or the quail analogy is very likely to come to pass.
The paper mail in surveys will always be better than the SC game check. DNR only sends out to a certain percentage and then extrapolate the data out based on number of hunters who bought tags. The surveys are fairly accurate, way more than the online system. But you’ll always have factors that skew like illegal birds, people “trying to help” and reporting their buddies who didn’t receive a survey, people lying, etc...
Paper surveys are more expensive for DNR but hopefully they don’t get away from it. SC game check is a good effort in the right direction and I believe they will sort it out and figure out how to accurately gather a true number of birds killed within the next few years.
I’m no biologist, but if if the downward trends continue, in 10 years I could foresee turkey hunting going the way that gator hunting is now. Lottery system, preference points, only a certain number of tags are given out, until the population recovers.
It’s always nice to read replies about doing stuff to save the turkeys from guys that tag out every year, then go be-bop around the state and assist in 10 or 15 more Getting shot. Y’all are part of the problem. If turkeys are really in a decline and I fully agree that they are, then why do some of y’all hunt them every damn day? I hope I stepped on some toes and hurt some feelings.......
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And while I’m at it let me add this. The problem with the turkey decline is not just one factor, it’s many factors. So we have control over some we don’t. Thankfully I saw a 10 or 20% increase in the flock numbers this year. But, I know other places that the numbers are down still in a big way. As a matter of fact this is the first year I’ve killed a turkey around where I live in about three years. But that had something to do with the increase or not I don’t know but I would like to think so.
RIP Kelsey "Bigdawg" Cromer
12-26-98 12-1-13
If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever.
Missing you my great friend.
"Think A Guy Like Me Worries About Percentages?" Tin Cup
"Some get spiritual cause they see the light, and some cause they feel the heat" Ray Wylie Hubbard
"P.S. I love turkeys. Mostly just hate those who hunt em." Glenn
I killed a coyote that attempted to eat a jake decoy. How does that effect the management plan? I would suggest that everyone manage their turkeys in their property as they see fit but since turkeys are migratory that clearly won’t work.....
Seeing these soulless vanilla ice lookin Yankees on a bassboat is worse than watching a woman get her implants taken out. It's just wrong. Get back in your Lund and go back to infisherman.
But all of yall have no problem running to another state as soon as duck season opens up because "SC has no birds". Gotcha.
"Hunt today to kill tomorrow." - Ron Jolly
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