Not A Success Story

[TauntoHawk]

What counties? If you're in the extreme part like Sullivan and Johnson yeah it plumb sucks. What was once a turkey Mecca is now a ghost town. Last year was even worse as I only saw 1 small group that had 1 longbeard on private and heard 1 on public the entire season. This year the public isn't any better but have seen several on private

We hunted Johnson and Sullivan. You're right about it being garbage. I will gladly give anyone my gps coordinates for those areas.

Hate it y'all had a bad trip. Talked to another out of stater the other day and they were pretty disappointed as well. There use to be a lot of birds but it has really plummeted in the last 5-7 years. Late 90s and early 00s were amazing.

What do you think is the primary reason for the drastic decline? Predators, wet springs/bad hatches, over harvested, habitat change?

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[Trax]

Harvest reports do not suggest a "drastic decline".

TWRA has a handy tool for checking this:

https://hunterstoolbox.gooutdoorstennessee.com/?reportId=187

Just a snapshot from  Johnson County, Spring Turkey  in particular.

Longbeards reported harvested in Johnson County by year:

2006 - 154

2010 - 144

2014 - 187

2018 - 221

[roberthyman14]

Hunted Oklahoma and all the birds were still in winter flocks on private. At least I heard some gobbling. Went to Florida for a week and didn't hear a gobble and that was on a quota hunt with less pressure. Sometimes you walk away knowing the effort you gave has to be enough.

Where at in Florida did you hunt?

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[turkey_slayer]

Y'all are looking at private land kills. The farms have birds that's no question. There's been 36 birds killed on roughly 350,000 acres. 2 of those are mine. That's almost 1 bird for every 10000 acres. That's not good odds. Then figure that covers several counties

[turkey_slayer]

What counties? If you're in the extreme part like Sullivan and Johnson yeah it plumb sucks. What was once a turkey Mecca is now a ghost town. Last year was even worse as I only saw 1 small group that had 1 longbeard on private and heard 1 on public the entire season. This year the public isn't any better but have seen several on private

We hunted Johnson and Sullivan. You're right about it being garbage. I will gladly give anyone my gps coordinates for those areas.

Hate it y'all had a bad trip. Talked to another out of stater the other day and they were pretty disappointed as well. There use to be a lot of birds but it has really plummeted in the last 5-7 years. Late 90s and early 00s were amazing.

What do you think is the primary reason for the drastic decline? Predators, wet springs/bad hatches, over harvested, habitat change?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Have no idea. Prob a little of everything. Lot more pressure than there use to be but kills have historically stayed between 80-140. Of course there's prob been a lot not checked in. No mast crop in 3 years is the biggest imo. That's why they're all in fields which is basically all private.