Well-Managed Private Property for Turkeys

[holdin down the fort]

Not SC, but I hunted a place in SE GA that was 2400 acres that was specifically managed for turkeys. Through winter flock sightings, trail cam surveys, and gobblers heard during the pre-season, a typical estimate of the gobbler population during the turkey season was always around 50-65 gobblers. All hunting came to a halt once 15 birds had been killed off the whole 2400 acres.

They never had a population problem.

Wow. I'm a bit jealous. I have 5 different properties totaling about 750 or so acres.... I can say fairly confidently that I have 1 longbeard total. I have not killed a bird off of them this year. Great habitat. Midlands of sc

[Gut_Pile]

It was a truly amazing place. But it's long gone. The owners sold it back in 2011.

Now I hunt places like everyone else, few birds and several hunters. Ha

[Tuffy]

I think it could be accomplished a number of ways of course but I would start by ridding those that are not like minded!

That might show the difference between managing for turkeys and having turkey hunting on your deer property. The latter used to work, but not as much any longer, it seems.

There is probably room for a discussion of how many properties are good for BOTH. Maybe fawns attract coyotes that get hungry when there aren't fawns.

[Lynchmob]

Ours is a deer hunting club, first and foremost. Only a couple of us really turkey hunted it the first several years and it was only getting hunted a couple of days a week. All the sudden, everybody is a turkey hunter.

[Calibogue]

In my opinion most properties are lacking good grassy Rangeland cover which I feel is some of the best fawning and nesting cover.
Kilgo and I had this discussion once when I told him the fawning cover at SRS sucked and he disagreed with me but I have deer and turkeys, and SRS, well is still SRS of today!
IMO, this is the best you can get with yotes around.
Look at the Midwest and what do you find.... Grassland, deer and turkeys abound among a tremendous yote population!
How can that be....?

[DMP]

My primary hunting spot is 2100 acres. Greenwood. 4 turkey hunters. Great habitat. Good hardwood bottoms, hardwood ridges, all ages of pines and 18 food plots. The one thing we don't do that I have tried and tried to get going is burning. I can't get but three of the 16 members on board to start a burn program. Other thing I wish we did was trap. I don't have time. But, we could hire someone but again, can't get the members on board to pay for it.

We once averaged 8-9 toms killed a season off this tract. Last year there was just 3 killed. Only one so far this year and not many heard or seen. I have always limited myself to 3 birds off this tract.
Luckily I have other tracts that only I turkey hunt that I could kill my other two on when the limit was 5. Only kids shoot jakes and I can probably count on one hand the number of jakes that have been killed off of it in the last 8 years.

[Tuffy]

Greenwood has been holding it's own as a county, but it might be at a little lower level than in the past.

[Gut_Pile]

I'm with Cali

I have always believed that the number of predators on a property do not matter when proper nesting and fawning habitat are present.

[Tuffy]

Think you could quantify the "best mix" of habitats? Something like X% grasslands and Y% hardwoods in your area? Or even the burn pattern? What would be ideal in a given area? That might take us back to how much harvest could that ideal habitat support per acre (or acres per harvest)?

[Calibogue]

One caveat to my equation is....I don't have pigs to any degree.
That said, others in the area who do (have pigs) still have plenty of birds and most are lightly hunted much like our place.
I'd have to do some looking at my GIS to give you some idea of our mix.

Our place is HEAVILY burned and a lot of open, grassy quail woods with Carolina Bays scatter between it all.

[LabLuvR]

I am hunting two tracts in Newberry county that I typically hear a lot of birds on. Last year was horrible as far as gobbling activity and this year doesn't seem to be much, if any better. Now, the good, I have seen a lot of hens, but gobbling has been very sporadic. Hogs in my experience do not have an impact on turkey populations, though one might think it would.

[Tuffy]

Lab... See if you can let me know who does a really good job of managing for turkeys in the Newberry/Union area. I have a good feel for the WMA areas there, but not much for the private lands. I suspect their approach is quite a bit different from Cali's, but would involve the grass lands that he mentioned. That may put it down on the SW end of the county?

[LabLuvR]

Tuffy, I can't tell you who does the best. However, I can tell you who does the worst. Sumter National Forest is by far the single largest landowner in the county to my knowledge. They don't do a damn thing but burn some of the lands. It's really sad to see that much land, which was once prime turkey habitat, to become a turkey wasteland. How in the hell there is any population at all boggles my mind. Way too much pressure and not near enough suitable habitat.

[DJP]

I will only speak about the upstate and not the mountains or lowlands.
I manage a tract for turkeys. 850 acres.
The turkeys don't hang out in the young pines, but I have noticed an increase in deer and turkey from what I think is the result of safer nesting/fawning areas within young pine.
In the older pine I burn as much as I can....about every 3 years. I even experimented by burning a hardwood slew last year. It was beautiful. Our neighbor is a cow pasture and the turkey definitely love a cow pasture. I have planted chufa in three places to try to pull the birds out of that pasture but my soil is too hard most places for it to help. One of the three chufa patches worked and it has pulled some out of the cow pasture. When the ground is wet the clay soil gets soft enough for them to dig it up.
We have two groves of sawtooths that are mowed underneath. They were planted about 1994. Got the worst sunburn of my life that day.
I feed the turkeys corn in January and February to get a survey and get them used to hanging out.
Overall we only kill about 3 birds each year on that tract.

[Calibogue]

Which puts you @ 1 bird/283 AC, pretty much the same as me....

[DJP]

Which puts you @ 1 bird/283 AC, pretty much the same as me....

That is interesting. I wonder what it would be if I did not do any of the prep work. Just showed up April 1 and started walking.

[Calibogue]

I don't understand the places with presumably quality habitat and no birds.
Other factors must be at play such as neighboring properties.
Not just their harvest record but land mgt. practices and diversity!

[Sportin' Woodies]

Since one Tom can breed multiple hens a day, what impact does killing 75% of gobblers have on the overall population?

[Tuffy]

It's NOT a certainty to me that every male can/will breed successfully. There is some chemistry and some social behavior involved.... But that is another topic, I guess.

[Lynchmob]

Absent bad hatches, I wouldn't think it would have too much impact if you were only killing 2 year old birds and older. Maybe I'm being naive about that though.