Friday, April 03, 2009
Talkin' toms: Spring turkey season is upon us
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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When Virginia’s spring turkey season opens in just over a week, Jim Basham will join the tens of thousands of hunters who rise well before dawn and head into the woods in the hopes of tagging a big gobbler.
And, like many, he’s already gotten started.
Several recent mornings he has headed out for scouting missions in the predawn blackness in the hopes of hearing some gobbling and locating some turkeys on his hunting ground. He’s been successful, too.
One day he didn’t hear much, but spotted a lone gobbler strutting in a field on the property adjacent to his hunting area.
“I can only hope he roosts on my side of the property line on opening day,” Basham reported. “I can’t wait.”
The wait won’t be long.
The main season opens on April 11.
Hunters who are willing to mentor a hunter 15 or younger will get an earlier start; the annual youth hunting day Saturday.
Scouters have reported a mixed bag, with some finding plenty of vocal gobblers and others having less success.
In short, they’re finding pretty much what they’ll find when the season actually starts.
Turkey trends
Last spring Virginia’s estimated 60,000 to 70,000 spring turkey hunters killed 15,037 birds, just 34 above the five-year average.
Gary Norman, the biologist who oversees the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ turkey program, said he doesn’t expect a major change this season.
Important ingredients such as turkey population levels, season structure and hunter participation have been holding fairly steady.
The one wild card could be weather.
“If you have poor weather on the first two weekends, that can have significant impact,” Norman said.
For example, based on hatches prior to the 2007 and 2008 springs, the kills those springs should have been comparable.
But last year’s kill was up about 7 percent from the 2007 spring.
The reason? Bad weather early in the 2007 season made for tough hunting. Last year the weather was better, plus there were those surplus birds left over from 2007.
Looking at hatch data from 2006 and 2007 — the years of interest since 2- and 3-year-old birds comprise the bulk of each year’s hunter kill — the stage is set for another average year.
The poult/adult hen index was 1.8 and 1.7 those years, respectively. That’s well below the 30-year average of 3.1 but not much different from the 10-year average of 2.1.
Actually, the statewide hatch index has met the 30-year average only once in the past decade, in 2004. Two springs later the state’s hunters killed 17,195 gobblers, the best total since the record of 18,345 recorded in 2002.
Gobbler study
Some hunters who have found turkeys in their preseason scouting probably feel pretty good about their odds heading out on opening morning.
But even if they do tag a gobbler, it might not be the one they have been listening to, according to interesting data collected from a study of five dozen turkeys outfitted with special telemetry collars.
As part of a three-year study that ended last year, biologists wanted to replicate situations that hunters might encounter. So they decided to see what happens when a person spooks a gobbler off the roost in the morning.
Sixty gobblers were located on the roost. The next morning, half were spooked out of their trees while the other half — the “control” group — were left alone.
That night the turkeys were relocated.
And the findings were surprising.
“The birds we flushed didn’t move as much as the control birds,” Norman said.
Some of the undisturbed gobblers actually ranged as far away as 2 miles.
Sixty birds is not a huge sample size. Still, the study suggests that a hunter need not be distraught when he bumps a roosted gobbler, or when a gobbler he’s been hearing in a specific spot disappears.
Maybe the bird has shut up. Or maybe it has left the area.
In any case, it’s probably only a matter of time before a new bird shows up in the spot.
Youth day
Hunter surveys suggest that about 10,000 adults take youth hunters afield on the annual spring youth turkey hunt.
Norman would like the number to be higher. He hopes adults aren’t saving their good spots for their own hunts.
“I’ve been disappointed somewhat with the youth season,” Norman said. “Long-term, for the future of turkey hunting, I think we need to be more altruistic about it.”
Last year youth hunters killed 238 turkeys, three more than were killed on the 2007 youth day.
The total equates to a success rate of only about 2 percent.
That may sound low, but it’s not too different from the success rate on the regular opening day.
On the main opener last year, adult hunters killed about 1,300 gobblers, a success rate of about 3 percent assuming that 40,000 hunters got out on that day.
And, like many, he’s already gotten started.
Several recent mornings he has headed out for scouting missions in the predawn blackness in the hopes of hearing some gobbling and locating some turkeys on his hunting ground. He’s been successful, too.
One day he didn’t hear much, but spotted a lone gobbler strutting in a field on the property adjacent to his hunting area.
“I can only hope he roosts on my side of the property line on opening day,” Basham reported. “I can’t wait.”
The wait won’t be long.
The main season opens on April 11.
Hunters who are willing to mentor a hunter 15 or younger will get an earlier start; the annual youth hunting day Saturday.
Scouters have reported a mixed bag, with some finding plenty of vocal gobblers and others having less success.
In short, they’re finding pretty much what they’ll find when the season actually starts.
Turkey trends
Last spring Virginia’s estimated 60,000 to 70,000 spring turkey hunters killed 15,037 birds, just 34 above the five-year average.
Gary Norman, the biologist who oversees the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ turkey program, said he doesn’t expect a major change this season.
Important ingredients such as turkey population levels, season structure and hunter participation have been holding fairly steady.
The one wild card could be weather.
“If you have poor weather on the first two weekends, that can have significant impact,” Norman said.
For example, based on hatches prior to the 2007 and 2008 springs, the kills those springs should have been comparable.
But last year’s kill was up about 7 percent from the 2007 spring.
The reason? Bad weather early in the 2007 season made for tough hunting. Last year the weather was better, plus there were those surplus birds left over from 2007.
Looking at hatch data from 2006 and 2007 — the years of interest since 2- and 3-year-old birds comprise the bulk of each year’s hunter kill — the stage is set for another average year.
The poult/adult hen index was 1.8 and 1.7 those years, respectively. That’s well below the 30-year average of 3.1 but not much different from the 10-year average of 2.1.
Actually, the statewide hatch index has met the 30-year average only once in the past decade, in 2004. Two springs later the state’s hunters killed 17,195 gobblers, the best total since the record of 18,345 recorded in 2002.
Gobbler study
Some hunters who have found turkeys in their preseason scouting probably feel pretty good about their odds heading out on opening morning.
But even if they do tag a gobbler, it might not be the one they have been listening to, according to interesting data collected from a study of five dozen turkeys outfitted with special telemetry collars.
As part of a three-year study that ended last year, biologists wanted to replicate situations that hunters might encounter. So they decided to see what happens when a person spooks a gobbler off the roost in the morning.
Sixty gobblers were located on the roost. The next morning, half were spooked out of their trees while the other half — the “control” group — were left alone.
That night the turkeys were relocated.
And the findings were surprising.
“The birds we flushed didn’t move as much as the control birds,” Norman said.
Some of the undisturbed gobblers actually ranged as far away as 2 miles.
Sixty birds is not a huge sample size. Still, the study suggests that a hunter need not be distraught when he bumps a roosted gobbler, or when a gobbler he’s been hearing in a specific spot disappears.
Maybe the bird has shut up. Or maybe it has left the area.
In any case, it’s probably only a matter of time before a new bird shows up in the spot.
Youth day
Hunter surveys suggest that about 10,000 adults take youth hunters afield on the annual spring youth turkey hunt.
Norman would like the number to be higher. He hopes adults aren’t saving their good spots for their own hunts.
“I’ve been disappointed somewhat with the youth season,” Norman said. “Long-term, for the future of turkey hunting, I think we need to be more altruistic about it.”
Last year youth hunters killed 238 turkeys, three more than were killed on the 2007 youth day.
The total equates to a success rate of only about 2 percent.
That may sound low, but it’s not too different from the success rate on the regular opening day.
On the main opener last year, adult hunters killed about 1,300 gobblers, a success rate of about 3 percent assuming that 40,000 hunters got out on that day.
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