The recent “off” spring recruitment season for turkey caught up with spring turkey hunters, and might ? or might not ? catch up with hunters this fall. No, turkey recruitment is not turkeys joining the military, but simply reproduction during spring/summer breeding periods. Think of it as restocking the hunted-turkey inventory.
The difficult springs in 2005 and 2006 dropped the 2007 state-wide spring hunting totals to 2,455 from the 2006 harvest of 3,008. That?s an 18 percent decrease from a year ago. The recent high for spring turkeys was in 2005 with a take of 3,136, followed by the 2002 total of 3,127. This spring (2007) total was the lowest since 1997 when hunters took 2,454 birds. Department of Natural Resources turkey project leader Bob Long noted the potential looming problem of low harvested numbers.
“A lot of success in the fall depends upon how well birds reproduced during the past spring and summer,” Long said last October.
A lot of the turkeys taken in the two previous spring seasons were adults, not jakes, further reducing the possibilities for high reproduction figures.
Sadly for young Nimrods, the one-day junior hunt of April 14 this year was 102 turkeys, down considerably from the 2006 total of 168 birds. The regular season of April 18 through May 23 saw a high number of turkeys (37 percent) taken in the first week.
“Fall hunting is very dependent upon previous summer reproduction and the number of poults produced. Right now [summer] is going to affect the fall season,” Long concluded.
Those “right now” poults will be jakes this fall, leading to some good hunting during Oct. 27 through Nov. 3 for the three western counties where fall turkey hunting is allowed. But with the drop in reproduction in 2005 and 2006, and past spring/fall hunting, this also results in fewer 2- to 3-year-old adult birds. These older birds are the “long beards” that many hunters seek.
Long notes that in summer brood surveys being conducted now some checked hens have up to 13 poults. Cold rains, hard rains for several days and chilly nights could drop those numbers down to only two or three young remaining out of a brood. That has not happened ? yet ? and Long is guardedly optimistic for this fall.
But in this, look at the positives for fall hunting. A typical method of fall hunting is to break up a flock, then use “assembly” calls to try to call the birds back. This works best with the young and inexperienced jakes and jennies, not as well for the coveted long beards.
Final results as to the spring/summer brood success will be available in September, plenty of time for hunters to plan accordingly ifbad weather knocks down the turkey population.
But then again, those younger birds ? jakes and jennies ? will likely be more tender and taste better. After all, you eat the turkey, not the beard.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected].
