Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 2011 officially doesn't suck

Congratulations. I like the shotgun too.

Oh, in fairly open country in the summer watch areas you routinely see the big hawks if turkey are around. They love the poults. A lot of west texas is short on trees unless you are at the ranch house and turkeys roost there and get a little docile unless a big hawk or owl moves in- then it's goodby turkeys. dr rc

If you guys like old guns, here is a bird I killed back in about 2003. The gun is a Scott & Sons Damascus 10 bore. I thnk it dates to about the 1880s.

And one more from last year with the '97. My grandfather killed prairie chickens in Iowa with this gun before his brother took it to Montana where he shot ducks and geese - there are MT licenses from 1917 and 1923 in the butt stock.

I took advantage of WI's fall season, but I didn't chase the birds specifically. I shot probably a dozen with my bow, while deer hunting. I shot one grouse hunting and busted up a flock (on accident) and called them back.

In WI fall season, you could shoot as many as you kept buying tags for. In the spring, it was a lottery and sometimes you get two tags, sometimes just one. Now you can buy left overs. I take advantage of that whenever possible.

I LOVE turkey hunting. I really get a charge out of bringing them in close.

Very cool picture!

Clearly, based on your spelling!

Love the old irons, Brent. Good on you.

Ya got me Leighton. Can't spell for crap, but mostly can't type.

Brent

Those old guns just exude class. Beautiful, and so very good to see them still in the field, still doing what they were designed to do.

It's ALL about the habitat.
If it's right enough for coyotes, it'll be good for turkey.

In NE Ohio the birds have actually driven back deer by cleaning up so much mast.

Do you have a liberal bag limit on the amount of turkeys you can take?

Brent, sorry if I have hijacked your thread, it's just that when there is a hint of a mesopredator reference I always want to learn more.

No highjack at all. No problemmo.

right now we are having heavy rain/sleet/hail and I'm more worried about that than predators of any type for mom's on eggs. I hope it won't last too long.

Our pheasants REALLY need some premo hatching conditions this year. Weather, not predators have been hammering them for the last 4 yrs, but the turkeys have been doing better every year so far.


Brent

This thread is proof that life is good, and life goes on, regardless of the craziness in our nation's capital and other parts of the world. It's great to be reminded.

No kidding.

We don't need this wet spring garbage.

Congrats Brent!

Nice birds and yes nice arms.
QDMA did an article a few years ago regarding the improvement of turkey populations when coyotes populations were higher due to exactly what has been mentioned (reduction of nest predators). I don't recall all the specifics but I believe it was a relatively controlled situation (perhaps even high fenced) utilizing trapping. I may be confusing the specifics with a more recent coyote/deer study. In either case, I don't care, I shoot every coyote I see, gladly. It's legal here 24/7/365 thankfully. As their positive affect on turkey populations is a documented fact (or at least conculsion), so is their affect on fawn recruitment. Coyote populations have really gone up in Georgia over the last several years. The turkey population is doing well and there is a marked decrease in deer population (we also went to an essentially unlimited doe season with 10 tags which undoubtedly had some affect).

For me there are too many inconstiencies in research results to absolutely conclude the coyote is benevolent across the wild turkey range. The predator prey relationship is to complex to generalize data applications with a wide brush. For example, the data is equivocal that the presence of coyotes has little effect on the raccoon predation of ground nesting birds. Direct killing of raccoons by coyotes is realtively infrequent and there is actually evidence that raccoons often are attracted to areas with coyotes with expectation that they will find carrion.

In short, the jury is still out.

Wayne

Further, if could be so bold as to speak anecdotally in my neck of the woods.

Turkey population is trending down from 2008.

Coyote population is steady - high.

Raccoon is steady - high.

Red fox is trending upward.

Skunk and oppossum is steady.

Is that anecdotal (i.e., WAGs), or is there actual evidence to support those positions?

No, Wayne, the jury is definitely not out (except on internet fora of course).

Coyotes don't have to kill raccoons to affect their foraging behavior. They only have to scare the [bleep] out of them. You can call this a Behaviorally Mediated Trophic Cascade Effect in polite company if you wish.

There are a lot of things that affect turkeys of course, and coyotes are just one of them. But on the whole the coyote effect will generally be positive. If you want to debate that you need better numbers than folks that make a living trying to figure these things out. It ain't armchair science (except on the internet of course )