Gobbler Nation

coconut wrote: ↑April 7th, 2021, 11:22 am Is invasive honey suckle the same thing as regular honeysuckle? We often promote honey suckle growth in my area as nutritious deer food.

what can happen is that a noninvasive variety of a plant is planted, when it goes to seed the new plants revert back to the invasive variety.

The invasive I refer to is Bush Honeysuckle, to my knowledge it is a non native from Japan China and Korea. Trumpet Honeysuckle is native to the SE US. from what I understand.

The Japanese version was brought over for ornamental landscape, and for the sweet smell. It is absolutely taking over some places, you will literally have old mature trees and honeysuckle, no ground cover or browse from chest high to the ground. Deer may eat it some but it seems to be of little benefit to the overall landscape.

A farm I managed the landowner despised it, paid me well to eliminate it from his property, stuff is tough and takes a few years to eliminate patches of it, I would cut it down and spray the bases with a high concentration of Glyph.( round Up) Once the area was clear seedlings would begin to pop up, spraying and burning them works but you have to keep after it! One bush on a point had a main trunk bigger than my quads, I had to examine that thing several times to make sure it was honeysuckle.

Missouri has a program where they are spraying a selective herbicide by plane, we looked into it but was not feasible on smaller tracts.

I agree it’s a combo of many factors. Habitat loss here gets my vote AND I believe our season starts too early. Couple that with rising popularity, predation, easier to be successful ( on the turkeys left) and it’s as I said,”a tough row to hoe.”
I’ve started telling my son that when a friend wants to Turkey hunt with you, get him to take you to his place- anybody else notice how all your friendz want you to take them and not the other way around lol....

The only decline I have ever witnessed was a few years in N. Michigan.The DNR trapped turkeys and moved them to S.W. Mi. to establish a flock. Then N. Mi. got hit hard with winter and wet springs. You couldn't find a turkey in Fairview " the wild turkey capital of Mi. "Well they then trapped birds in S.w. Mi.and moved them back to the Fairview area. Now we have turkeys all over the place outside Detroi S.e.part or the state.. Michigans turkeys are everywhere.

In my short 25 years of chasing these majestic creatures. I have seen the population in my zip code be great, go to ****, be great again and go to **** again. Hunter numbers haven't changed and habitat hasn't changed. The coyote population has changed dramatically so that's where I place my blame.

In the areas I hunt, there's not a large number of hunters. And even the guys that do hunt, they only kill a few birds every year. So, it's got to be something else. Nest predators, predators, or whatever.

Nice!! You trapping or hunting them, Roy?

Hognutz wrote: ↑April 8th, 2021, 9:17 am Nice!! You trapping or hunting them, Roy?

Trapping. And its not hard! All hunters need to be trapping. It is not hard. Dad and I have been doing it. Dad said he was watching some vids on youtube and a trapper that was interviewed said he put a cam on a yote den. He said the yotes brought in 12 fawns to the den. Now, I dont know if that is true, but damn. So, we are doing what we can.

Nice.. I shoot them on sight in the field behind my house. I usually get 2 or 3 a year.

Nice. U should get some traps its a lot of fun.

I probably should. I know it would be more effective. They sure are fun to smoke with my .22-250.

Glad your taking some out. I used to work with a guy that snared several.

I have read where if you harvest a few coyotes in an area it actually encourages the alpha female to have more in her next litter.

coconut wrote: ↑April 9th, 2021, 7:34 am I have read where if you harvest a few coyotes in an area it actually encourages the alpha female to have more in her next litter.

I'll catch them too lol

Whatever has caused the reduction, I hope it gets better in a few years.

Just finished reading the GN kill thread and I now know why the wild turkey populations are declining. Hawglips

The latest THP video on the Decline of the Wild Turkey is a good one.

Very good video on YouTube. One thing that I asked about but didn’t get a reply was who all is funding the research? I saw dr chamberlain wearing a nwtf shirt which makes me think they may be funding a portion of his research. Nwtf always talks about loss of habitat being the main problem and not over harvest.maybe that is what is going on but I just want to know the truth as to what it is. Most of the time I have noticed that the organization that funds the study seems to have a say so in the results. They tend to get the researchers to skew the evidence in the direction they want it to go or else the researcher is cut off on the next round of funding. Research scientists are well aware of this and tend to accept this in order to keep getting funds for there research.

It is not as simple as just one thing, predators etc. Death by 1000 cuts! The thing with predators is they fluctuate with everything else, lots of food for them then lots of predators.

I would surely think reducing them at the right time would help, but you are not getting them all! Providing the turkey with security cover and quality nesting sites is likely a larger factor.

With everything that is eating turkeys from the time they are an egg it is a miracle any make it!

Kids found this egg eater behind the house and thought it would be cool to put the fix to it with the 410 running #9.5 TSS. WhoBilly thought it was great also, 9.00 a shell to laugh !!!!!!

I love stories with happy endings!