Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting Not seeing any big broods

In my neck of the woods, the turkeys are bigger than the eagles and fight back.

They're fighting over the whiskey.

I have no doubt turkeys fight back. But the flight abilities and hardware on an eagle trump the turkey's. And the proliferation of eagles must be having an impact. I saw so many eagles last spring season, more than I'd ever seen in the past. We have so many eagle here in southestern Virginia. A few years ago I saw one attack a Blue Heron in the top of a cypress tree, drive it off, and carry away the Heron poult.

In fact, the numbers of raptors of all kinds have exploded. Even small Coopers Hawks will take poults and I see those every day. They're everywhere. I saw a Coppers Hawk tailing two crows, catch up underneath, pull an Immelman. and snatch a crow and try to carry it off in the direction it had just come. I find feathers in my yard all the time from Cooper Hawk attacks on doves.

Given all the raptors out there, its amazing turkey poults survive at all.

I guess I'm skewing your numbers, no bait here. And it's totally up to you whether you use a tool that's available or not, but please be careful you don't fall off that tall soapbox you like to stand on. My 2 trail cameras serve more purpose that to see what wonders by. They help me monitor the 2 legged varmints that wonder by too.... which, unfortunately, is an issue lately.

Years ago, I saw a red tailed hawk either catch, or try to catch a poult. The hen flew after the hawk, and I have never seen a turkey fly that fast or that high. We don't have many eagles here, but do have an overabundance of hawks. Growing up on a farm that had a large flock of chickens, my grandfather had a rule............if it would catch a chicken, you killed it. Back before they became protected, we shot every hawk we saw.

I see occassional Red Tailed Hawks. I see far more eagles. And smaller Cooper Hawks. And we have a metric shytload of Barred Owls around here. And those owl very much will hunt in the day.

As far as raccoons, this area is proliferating with them. Not only will they kill poults, they are capable for killing adult turkeys and fawns. The Va DWR says raccoons are the #1 predators of fawns. I've seen them go across my property at night in groups, and they are as big, bigger than the foxes I'm seeing.

I keep the dog proof coon traps out year round. I caught 2 coons and 2 possums in the past week. It's illegal to that according to the trapping season, but if I don't my place will be overrun with them. The coons will devastate a sweet corn patch, and both coons and possums prey on my chickens.

The state game and fish people need to wise up and allow the taking of these predators on a year round basis.

hav-a-heart trap, catch and shoot.

No lie there...........

Never heard of a racoon killing a turkey big or small or a fawn.

Some of the local Mennonites raise turkeys on a contract, pasture raised birds. They do it so whoever processes and sells them can call them organic or some kind of crap like that. Anyway, they have problems with predators, including coons, and having seen a coon kill a full grown chicken, I have no doubt they could take a pretty good sized turkey.

Now, a fawn is another matter. I've never seen or heard of it happening.

Plenty of turkey broods in the east-central part of Minnesota. I get around from the Cities to Duluth and see at least a couple every day. I chased up one brood of about a dozen from the yard at the cabin when I went to mow the trails. Just yesterday I ran across three groups of combined broods numbering from about 15 to more than 30. Bachelor groups are regularly seen running around 10 birds in each group.

I lost two nests to predators, likely raccoons, this spring. I haven't seen any signs of a raccoon taking a turkey but I have seen two instances over the last 30 years where an otter tried. Neither time was the otter successful but there were a lot of feathers. Around here, fox seem to be the real problem where it comes to predation of turkeys. Find a fox den and one will find the remains of a fair number of ground nesting birds. One will find far fewer signs of bird predation around a coyote den but one will find fox remains (and cat too).

A newborn fawn weighs under 10 lbs and won't move when approached by a predator. Raccoons can go over 20 lbs and would have no problem killing a fawn. I remember a DWR study done some years ago, when they were the DGIF, that suggested where there were bears, they and bob cats were the biggest predators of fawns. Where neither existed in any numbers, raccoons were.

https://www.mossyoak.com/our-obsession/blogs/predator/war-with-turkey-predators

Damn! A coon kill a fawn? I never considered that but I know coons are thicker than fleas on a dogs back around here....nobody hunts them anymore, I only know 1 coon hunter now....Hb

Anyone that thinks raccoons are just trash can raiders and egg eaters are discounting the fact that they are efficient and capable preadators in their own right capable of taking down an animal at least their own weight. I doubt a newborn fawn weighs as much as this iquana.



I've seen raccoons on my property running acros my front yard 2 and 3 at a time, with some so tall that they would come up to my knee.

Knee high coons....you're Nuttz as usual

I have had guides on pheasant hunts tell me that coons there get to be in the 30 pound range and will tear up a bird dog. I did shoot one out there while hunting, they were WAY bigger than any I have seen around my house.

raccoons can be dang nasty here in Minnesota sometimes, a friend shot a raccoon years ago that weighed over 60 lbs but the record raccoon weighed 75 lbs. i have shot them 30-40 lbs at least once a year . i went to using a 22 K-Hornet just because a raccoon is tuff to kill sometimes .

Maybe if you owned a game camera or went out at night, you might not be so ataken back at someone saying they can be as tall as the knee. It's really not uncommon at all. They can, and do, get bigger than a lot of people think. They aren't just fuzzy, cute, widdle aminals.

A coon will whip most any dog that screws with it...I guess you guys never saw a coon dog fight.

I use to coon hunt a lot in my teen's and early 20's so yes, I have seen a coon fight a dog. Never seen coons as big as they have in SD around the woods we hunted in TN.