Thread: Turkey Calls

Very few trappers anymore. Coon population is exploding....egg suckers are everywhere and big as Trash can lids. Anybody with a feeder and cam knows it. It may be a cycle, like the squirrel population....one can only hope. Disclaimer: I'm not a biologist.

I have temporarily wiped out entire raccoon populations in my hunting area, but it doesn't seem to do much good, except to keep them off my bird feeder. Turkeys, as a species, have been dealing with predators for a long time and have been very successful. When you read accounts of the turkey population before we started killing them for market, away back when, it sounds like you had to kick them out of your way to walk through the woods. I hope it is some sort of natural cycle, but I hope it passes quickly because I don't have a whole lot of hill climbing years left to chase after them. They are hugely adaptive creatures, just ask the suburban dwellers in NJ where they are chasing people back into their cars and becoming the apex street thugs.

Yep Haywire...Age is creeping up on me too....back in the early and mid 80s we had turkeys on every hill and in every golf course...then it crashed....one particular road in our local WMA that I have heard as many as 15 gobbling in the past I only heard one in there the entire season last year....I have the guys in our club on a one bird limit this year...we have been trying to "bank" some each year so we would have one or two to hunt....


BTW...not to change the subject but...I read the article on your Dad in Earl Mickel's book...it you have never seen it I will mail you a copy....just let me know

i use a diaphragm exclusively. our Tennessee population is also down. it is being attributed to flooding in West Tn but i don't know why the eastern state birds are down. just 5 years ago, we had 7 different gobblers sounding off opening morning on our little 22 acres. this past season, we saw 1 tom(he got killed) and 2 jakes and only 5 or 6 hens.

It's probably part of a prey/predator cycle regarding reports of declining turkey stocks. Raccoons, coyotes, foxes - all capable of impacting the turkey population. Of course, as the turkey population declines, those predators have to move on to other local wildlife and even into suburban areas to try to find food.