Spring hunt success for states

[idgobble]

I'm curious about hunter success rates. I've been asked to do a podcast about turkey hunting in Idaho, my home. Our Spring success rate for hunts for the last three years range from 35% to 46%, depending on the hunting unit. I'm wondering where we rank. Please reply with the success rate for your state. Thanks.

[joey46]

If Florida ever claimed a success rate I've never seen it reported.  It would be a wild guess anyway since they continue to allow the over 65 year old resident to hunt without being licensed. The recent mandatory harvest reporting system helps with accountability but does nothing to account for the unlicensed unsuccessful. 

[patternfreak]

I am an engineer by trade so I do a lot of number crunching on turkey statistics.

On public land, areas with a 35-40% success rate are VERY good. Your average success rate on public land in these eastern states I frequent is more like 18-20%

[joey46]

There are so many that go out once or twice then find something better to do that all these stats can be misleading.

[Rio Bandito]

Texas just started making harvest reporting mandatory last year. I'm very curious to see the data when it comes out. I'm betting harvest will be much lower than most people think. Not sure how they'll determine success rates either. We get 4 tags on a license, doesn't matter if you turkey hunt or not. You only fill out all the harvest reporting information and questions if you kill one. They'll have great data on those that log kills, but no data on anyone that hunts but doesn't kill, or people that have licenses but don't turkey hunt. Can't determine success rates if they're missing half the dataset.

[Sixes]

Georgia looks to run about 25-30% for private land and 5-6% on WMAs.

The number of birds seems to still be declining in the areas that I hunt around the state. All private land

Success rates fell slightly after shortening of the season and reduction of bag limits.

[deathfoot]

Some states you'd never be able to know. Like my state of Virginia and many eastern states. The turkey tags are included in a big game license. So if you want to deer hunt you buy a big game license and here in Virginia it comes with 4 deer tags and 3 turkey tags. So it would be difficult to know who hunted turkeys and who didn't. Virginia had no issue separating the bear tag that use to come with the license but even at that you buy the sportsmen combo, that I do every year, and it comes with a bear tag. But I have no desire to kill a bear but it's cheaper to buy the all inclusive license for fishing and what not.

Virginia just "estimates" how many turkey hunters they think there is based off the harvest numbers and I gotta assume other states do as well that have the combo big game"big game" license. Although Virginia now calls it "deer/turkey" license. I'm not opposed to them splitting that up like they did the bear license. But Virginia doesn't have a big pull in the turkey lobby like they do the bear association here. And it would upset a lot of people who like to kill a turkey on Thanksgiving with a .30/06 just because turkey season is open that day and one wanders by. But I got off subject so I apologize

[sasquatch1]

Some states you'd never be able to know. Like my state of Virginia and many eastern states. The turkey tags are included in a big game license. So if you want to deer hunt you buy a big game license and here in Virginia it comes with 4 deer tags and 3 turkey tags. So it would be difficult to know who hunted turkeys and who didn't. Virginia had no issue separating the bear tag that use to come with the license but even at that you buy the sportsmen combo, that I do every year, and it comes with a bear tag. But I have no desire to kill a bear but it's cheaper to buy the all inclusive license for fishing and what not.

Virginia just "estimates" how many turkey hunters they think there is based off the harvest numbers and I gotta assume other states do as well that have the combo big game"big game" license. Although Virginia now calls it "deer/turkey" license. I'm not opposed to them splitting that up like they did the bear license. But Virginia doesn't have a big pull in the turkey lobby like they do the bear association here. And it would upset a lot of people who like to kill a turkey on Thanksgiving with a .30/06 just because turkey season is open that day and one wanders by. But I got off subject so I apologize

This. Licenses desperately need to be separated and simplified. Just simply sell the tags similar to Missouri

Do away with this all game/small game crap with add on permits.

Wanna hunt deer, here's your deer tags (the tag IS the license.

Wanna hunt turkey, here's your turkey tags

And so forth.


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[Lcmacd 58]

Some states you'd never be able to know. Like my state of Virginia and many eastern states. The turkey tags are included in a big game license. So if you want to deer hunt you buy a big game license and here in Virginia it comes with 4 deer tags and 3 turkey tags. So it would be difficult to know who hunted turkeys and who didn't. Virginia had no issue separating the bear tag that use to come with the license but even at that you buy the sportsmen combo, that I do every year, and it comes with a bear tag. But I have no desire to kill a bear but it's cheaper to buy the all inclusive license for fishing and what not.

Virginia just "estimates" how many turkey hunters they think there is based off the harvest numbers and I gotta assume other states do as well that have the combo big game"big game" license. Although Virginia now calls it "deer/turkey" license. I'm not opposed to them splitting that up like they did the bear license. But Virginia doesn't have a big pull in the turkey lobby like they do the bear association here. And it would upset a lot of people who like to kill a turkey on Thanksgiving with a .30/06 just because turkey season is open that day and one wanders by. But I got off subject so I apologize

This. Licenses desperately need to be separated and simplified. Just simply sell the tags similar to Missouri

Do away with this all game/small game crap with add on permits.

Wanna hunt deer, here's your deer tags (the tag IS the license.

Wanna hunt turkey, here's your turkey tags

And so forth.


Amen !! I wish Illinois would

[deathfoot]

Some states you'd never be able to know. Like my state of Virginia and many eastern states. The turkey tags are included in a big game license. So if you want to deer hunt you buy a big game license and here in Virginia it comes with 4 deer tags and 3 turkey tags. So it would be difficult to know who hunted turkeys and who didn't. Virginia had no issue separating the bear tag that use to come with the license but even at that you buy the sportsmen combo, that I do every year, and it comes with a bear tag. But I have no desire to kill a bear but it's cheaper to buy the all inclusive license for fishing and what not.

Virginia just "estimates" how many turkey hunters they think there is based off the harvest numbers and I gotta assume other states do as well that have the combo big game"big game" license. Although Virginia now calls it "deer/turkey" license. I'm not opposed to them splitting that up like they did the bear license. But Virginia doesn't have a big pull in the turkey lobby like they do the bear association here. And it would upset a lot of people who like to kill a turkey on Thanksgiving with a .30/06 just because turkey season is open that day and one wanders by. But I got off subject so I apologize

This. Licenses desperately need to be separated and simplified. Just simply sell the tags similar to Missouri

Do away with this all game/small game crap with add on permits.

Wanna hunt deer, here's your deer tags (the tag IS the license.

Wanna hunt turkey, here's your turkey tags

And so forth.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I totally agree. But I doubt I see that in my lifetime here. Just like the law allowing rifles that needs to be changed and won't be.

[idgobble]

I don't think it's as difficult to track hunting success as some of you think. My state has about 20,000 Spring hunters. They send out a survey at the end of the season. here's another thing they do:  https://idfg.idaho.gov/node/49836

[deathfoot]

I don't think it's as difficult to track hunting success as some of you think. My state has about 20,000 Spring hunters. They send out a survey at the end of the season. here's another thing they do:  https://idfg.idaho.gov/node/49836

You are correct. But a state needs to do a survey and people need to fill it out. When you combine a "big game" license that includes turkey tags I'm guessing the state isn't worried about how many turkey hunters there are. When you sell over 150,000 combo tags I doubt they want to survey that. I could be wrong. But of those 150,000 plus, how many are turkey hunters. We don't know. They don't ask. Splitting the license would definitely help. But that's my opinion

[joey46]

Much more interested in harvest numbers than success rates. So many variables in success reporting.  Did the hunter hunt two days or 30 days?  An unsuccessful hunter that only hunted opening weekend or one that hunted hard throughout the season is a big difference.  What's Idaho's ultimate goal?  If Idaho is going to publicize a 46% success rate then hang on because you've got a deluge coming.  Agree with the "loose lips" group on this one.  I had never researched Idaho as a turkey destination.  I will now.

[Ihuntoldschool]

Yeah the whole thing is flawed from the start. As if success is only measured in terms of kills.

As previous posters have pointed out for most states that sell tags in a combination it's impossible to get reliable data.

With that being said It's a good bet the Western states are going to rank much higher than Eastern states where turkeys have inhabited much longer and been hunted for much longer. It's nowhere near the same.

I agree with previous poster. It's a meaningless stat and pales in comparison to actual harvest numbers.