What is "safe" number of birds to harvest?

[jakesdad]

I know there are tons of variables involved here,but in general what do you believe is a safe number of birds to harvest off of a 400 acre tract in a years time without damaging the flock for the future?

In our case on that amount of land,I know we've got(as of right now)8-10 mature gobblers,close to the same for jakes,and probably 20-25 hens and poults(young enough that i'm not sure if some are male birds).

On average I'd say we take 3-4 birds in the spring and up to 6 in the fall.Without taking in predation and natural causes of death,plus birds that are there that we dont know are there,is there any way to figure a "limit" so to speak,as to not over harvesting the resource.

Pretty loaded question I know,but just kind of got me curious if there has been any type of study(sure there has somewhere) that would suggest what steps to implement to ensure a steady flock of birds for future hunting.

[guesswho]

Way to many variables to come up with a set number.  If it's 400 acres surrounded by 5,000 acres of low pressure hunting then your not going to put a dent in the population.  If all your neighbors are turkey slayers and everyone averages the 8-9 per 400 acres as you do then you may see a large fluctuation year to year.

But with that said, the biggest factor on the number and age structure of birds is probably going to be the weather you had the spring and early summer the two previous years.   I'd base my "limit" on that property based on what I was seeing and hearing this year.   

[VA_Birdhunter]

Way to many variables to come up with a set number.  If it's 400 acres surrounded by 5,000 acres of low pressure hunting then your not going to put a dent in the population.  If all your neighbors are turkey slayers and everyone averages the 8-9 per 400 acres as you do then you may see a large fluctuation year to year.

But with that said, the biggest factor on the number and age structure of birds is probably going to be the weather you had the spring and early summer the two previous years.   I'd base my "limit" on that property based on what I was seeing and hearing this year.

Guesswho said it well....very good info and exactly in line of what I was thinking! 

God bless


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[jakesdad]

I knew it would be impossible to nail down a specific number considering the seemingly unlimited variables. Very little pressure around us so that doesnt really have an effect.I was just wondering if there may be a generic baseline to go by year to year. Say you have observed 6 mature gobblers and 6 jakes on your property.Do you try not to harvest over say 1/3 of those birds,so in this case no more than 4.Pretty broad question,more of a curiousity question more than anything.Thanks.

[SinGin]

Keep in mind, all those gobbler you see now in groups wont be too much of buddies in a couple of month. Some may be ran off the propert all together
Guesswho said it best though.

[mgm1955]

Kenny Morgan's book, " Turkey Hunting: A One Man Game" has some good ideas about this.

[silvestris]

It is not so much how many you take, rather it is how many you leave.  If you don't have as many this this year as you had last year (assuming you had enough last year), then you took too many last year.  It is unfortunate that the results of this year's hatch are not known until after the bell has rung.

[nativeks]

Loaded question. You string a couple bad hatches along with that many birds dying and you can really adversely affect populations. It was 2007 when our population started falling and they still haven't recovered. Its a sliding scale, just be mid up of the resource.

[GobbleNut]

In reality, if you are in good habitat, hunting mortality will have little to do with the stability of your turkey numbers.  In fact, gobbler-only hunting will have nothing to do with it.  The only thing that shooting more of your gobblers each season will do is affect the quality of the next year's hunting in terms of the number of mature birds you might have to hunt. 
If you have six mature gobblers and six jakes this year,...and you kill four of each, you will only have two of each left for next year...four mature birds,... plus whatever recruitment you might have through reproduction and emigration from surrounding habitats. 
As has been pointed out, you are staking your future quality of hunting almost entirely upon reproductive success.  In good quality habitat, that strategy might work fairly consistently, but it is still a gamble.   
The choice you ultimately have to make is that of quality versus quantity.  That is, do you want to shoot the maximum number of birds available each spring (quantity), or do you want to preserve the intangibles of the hunt,...hearing lots of gobbling, working more birds, and perhaps seeing a lot more turkeys (quality) by shooting fewer gobblers so that there are more live birds left for future hunts?
The choice is yours as to which approach you take.  There is little possibility, however, under the circumstances you describe, that killing more or less gobblers each year is going to affect your overall turkey numbers over time.

[bamagtrdude]

Hmmm, you said you take 3-4 "birds" (gobblers?) in the spring & 6 "birds" (gobblers) in the fall?  And then you said y'all have 8-10 mature gobblers on the land.  If the 3-4 + 6 "birds" are all gobblers, you're extinguishing 'em all each year.    Might have misunderstood what you said above.

Like others have said, there's too many variables at play here, *BUT*...  Personally, I'd "zone" out this 400 acres track & set a rule in place -- 1 mature bird per zone.  Let's say you could zone 100 acres at a time, then that'd be 4 mature toms taken PER YEAR.  That'd leave 4-6 mature toms to walk, year over year (assuming all the #'s remain flat, which may or may not be realistic).

In any event, we have the "option" (I like to call it this) here in Alabama to bag 5 gobblers per spring season.  Frankly, I only know a few folks that do it, and the ones that do have a multitude of places to do it on; ie they're not "emptying" one piece of land of all the mature gobblers on it.  I have a few tracks I hunt, and I "shoot" for 1 mature tom per track; once I hit that (*IF* I hit that), I'm done & happy.

Don't know if this jives with a book on managing turkeys, but ...  This model seems to work well for me around here...  Again, TOO MANY variables, but ...  food for thought.

BGD

[jakesdad]

The spring birds are of course all gobblers.The fall birds are usually all hens,so we are not extinguishing all our gobblers every year.We do have a "jake rule" in place,as only young/first time hunters are encouraged to harvest them,thus leaving us a crop,if you will,for next year.Those numbers are probably a "worst case" scenario if you will,but it is not uncommon.We do not shoot every bird we can by any means.If any given spring i'm not hearing/seeing many birds,then we adjust accordingly.We have been lucky in the past to have several mature gobblers every spring,in as much as the harvesting of 3-4 every year has not hampered our population for following years.Flocks of 25+ birds in the fall is not uncommon.I like the idea of "zoning" and may give that a try this year.

I understand perfectly the fact of too many variables,just looking for some generic ideas,such as the one you gave me on your zoning idea.

[bamagtrdude]

10-4!  We can't take hens here in AL, so wanted to clarify your "birds" descriptor.  Good luck, bud; this sounds like great land to hunt!

[jakesdad]

No problem.Yes we have been very blessed with our turkey numbers.You should have seen this place back in the 90's! 12-14 mature birds gobbling everyday in the spring.HUGE flocks of birds in the winter would gather in the crop fields in the river bottoms.I sure miss those days

[J Hook Max]

Maybe this is just my opinion, but if you want to continue to harvest three or four toms each spring, lay off killing those hens in the fall. Mother Nature will eventually take her toll on your hens and toms with a couple of poor hatches. You cannot have too many hens. Again, just my opinion.
I think the three or four is about the right amount of toms.
We hunt about 2,000 acres in Middle Tennessee and we never try and take more than 15 birds off our land. This is all toms. I also have a 150 acre peice leased and limit myself to one tome per year on that property.