MOTurkeyTamer

This spring here in Northern MO was fantastic! Heard a lot of gobbling and saw a ton of birds. I was fortunate enough to take a nice pair of birds also. I wish all spring seasons could be like the past one!

springgobbler

In West Virginia, for me personally, it was a tough spring. I hunted pretty hard and after looking at my log, only had three days where I heard much gobbling. I thought I was just crazy and wasn' t doing the right things until talking to some folks at the local banquet....I think alot of others experienced the same thing in my area.

I was fortunate enough to lock onto a very willing gobbler (a mature one at that) that made for a very exciting hunt and early morning kill.

wacker

Here in WI there was lots of early morning gobbling but they were henned up pretty much the whole season.Setting up close to the roost tree worked for me.

turk2di

It seems to me that the more turkeys we have, the less gobblin im hearin I guess they don' t have to gobble like they used too. Heard a few everymorning but not in correlation to the # of birds we have. Im guessin that even 2 year olds birds are busy most of the season nowadays Start bustin hen' s in the fall guy' s or it' s gonna get even quieter[]

Mr. Longbeard

I' m just wondering if the DNR needs to thin out some of the hens. We only have 7 or 10 days to hunt in the fall and I really dont think there are many die hard fall turkey hunters out there any more...

Mailman29680

Respected biologist and turkey hunter, Lovett Williams, seems to think that turkeys can self regulate their populations. He feels that turkeys can determine carrying capacity for theland they are on and choose to nest or not based on the circumstances.
This has been studied in areas where the turkey has been relocated in order to build sustainable hunting populations. In many of these areas there have been large population gains in the first few years followed by reduced hatches once the populations have reached higher levels.
Another sign of this may be when hunters spot gobblers with hens late in the hunting season and claim that the gobblers are still all henned up and hard to call away, even late in the season. Perhaps someof those hens that the gobbler is courting are actually in an off year and may not breed at all...

I would highly suggest any of Williams books if you are really interested in knowing more about turkeys and becoming a better turkey hunter. The art and science of the wild turkey is one of my favorites, it blends some great scientific and behavior information with some sounds hunting advice.

trapper T

Well I' d have to say personally, a good year. Bagged 2. But the season was like BT said, hen' d up all through out. We had an early hot spell in Feb. and seemed to kick them in gear a little early. But for me like I said a good year, after my first 3, they couldn' t get much worse. My first time out I went with a guy at my Wofe' s work who turned out to be a run an gun member. Constantly telling me he had permission to hunt these lands, but kept getting kicked off[:@]. 2nd year talked my Wife into going and she slept wrong and threw her neck out of place, so I spent opening weekend looking for a Chiropractor(sp.). My 3rd year my hunting partner ate some under cooked sausage and came down with e-coli[X(]. So they ' re all good seasons after all that.

Swingin Peduncle

It was a good season (ANY season spent hunting instead of working is GOOD!), but it was a weird season all right. I think it was mostly due to weather. It was cool and rained nearly everywhere I hunted. I hunted 9 states, 66 days, but only called turkeys " into camp" (to less than 40 yards) on 17 of those days. That' s the lowest total in the past 10 years, by a LOT.

Bobgobble2

Longbeard,it seems like Adrian posted that finding a gobbler by himself is a thing of the past!!If they dont have hens with them,they always have another gobbler!And it always seems that one of em is a nervous wreck keeping them out of gunrange!!![:@]

MOMonarch

Excellent season for me, but definatly a strange one. in my area the ground tempature was never warm enough for the hens to go to nest so they were with the gobblers all the time! normally when i hunt we do alot of walking and the past few seasons we would always jump up a few hens, and this year we did more walking then ever and never once did i see a hen on a nest.

o well, as long as i fill my tags im happpy