There are many discussions in here about deer and turkey numbers and how hunting and hunters impact our success and enjoyment of this sport.
It really hit home for me this year with turkeys.
I have posted elsewhere how the turkey population has dramatically dropped around my property. From seeing flocks of 15-20+ birds during the winter and the hillsides reverberating with gobbles during the spring to seeing a SINGLE been with poults this fall and only 2 gobblers and a single hen this spring. That is while mushroom hunting, shed hunting and driving around the same 1000+ acres and not seeing any turkeys in the fields or heating any gobbles all spring. Last season i had multiple jakes and at least two different Toms in my immediate area.
Other nearby landowners are seeing/hearing the same and none of us decided to hunt locally.
I did see someone that hunts one property over post their success. I saw him a week or so later and asked where the success was had.
"Well i hadn't seen or heard any all spring but i set out anyway because i love to turkey hunt and these two gobblers wandered through and i got one".
I had the two i had seen fairly well patterned and they were roosting a few hundred yards away from the field i saw them in daily in the direction of the property that individual hunts.
Guess what I haven't seen AT ALL since the Facebook success post?
Fellow hunters, it's obvious too many on here that the ODNR doesn't prioritize things in the same way that many of us do. But for the love of God we should be better than this to realize (and the individual was one of the first local hunters to ask me if i had noticed the disappearing turkeys and if we had any pockets of them) the impact of our actions.
It really hit home for me this year with turkeys.
I have posted elsewhere how the turkey population has dramatically dropped around my property. From seeing flocks of 15-20+ birds during the winter and the hillsides reverberating with gobbles during the spring to seeing a SINGLE been with poults this fall and only 2 gobblers and a single hen this spring. That is while mushroom hunting, shed hunting and driving around the same 1000+ acres and not seeing any turkeys in the fields or heating any gobbles all spring. Last season i had multiple jakes and at least two different Toms in my immediate area.
Other nearby landowners are seeing/hearing the same and none of us decided to hunt locally.
I did see someone that hunts one property over post their success. I saw him a week or so later and asked where the success was had.
"Well i hadn't seen or heard any all spring but i set out anyway because i love to turkey hunt and these two gobblers wandered through and i got one".
I had the two i had seen fairly well patterned and they were roosting a few hundred yards away from the field i saw them in daily in the direction of the property that individual hunts.
Guess what I haven't seen AT ALL since the Facebook success post?
Fellow hunters, it's obvious too many on here that the ODNR doesn't prioritize things in the same way that many of us do. But for the love of God we should be better than this to realize (and the individual was one of the first local hunters to ask me if i had noticed the disappearing turkeys and if we had any pockets of them) the impact of our actions.