The 2019 spring turkey season is now officially history and “in the books” as they say.
Gross numbers statewide were up about 8% from last year, including the youth season. You can probably attribute this to slightly better weather conditions from last year overall (warmer and less rain equals better hunting) and an increase in harvest from more northern counties.
Butler and surrounding counties’ 2019 spring turkey harvest tell a different story. We continue to see a steady drop in our spring turkey harvest each year. The most common question I get this time of year is “why is this happening?”
We can only speculate and look at what is happening locally. One thing we cannot ignore in Butler County is economic growth, and with growth comes more development of outlying areas in the county; building of more homes and smaller acreages. Those larger farms that were once difficult to access and basically served as turkey refuges with little disturbance are now small properties 10 acres or less.
Then there is the all-important factor in turkey production, the annual hatch. If we do not have good hatches, we will not have turkeys to hunt in the future.
But, let us think about what the hatch actually is, and what it includes. The hatch number is usually the amount of young that reach maturity per hen each year.
That includes a lot of different factors. How many eggs does one hen turkey lay? Twelve plus, if the nest is not interrupted. Can anything influence the number of eggs layed? Yes – food quantity and quality. These factors always affect reproduction, good or bad.
Wild turkeys depend heavily on acorn crops for food to get them through winter in the Ozarks. Acorn crops have been good or stable until this past fall. Last fall’s mast production was poor at best, and there are some who believe competition for food by wild hogs (they do eat acorns) is affecting turkey production by limiting food availability.
Fortunately, this winter was mild and most of the turkeys we do have did gobble and aggressively breed.
What if turkey nests are disturbed, since they are on the ground? A turkey hen many times will attempt one or maybe even two re-nests, but with less eggs each time (eight or less, then maybe six or less). What interrupts the nest? Rain or flooding, predators or even disturbance from people are common. Last spring was relatively dry, but we apparently did not get a very good hatch.
Take into consideration fur prices of predators took a severe drop three years ago when the Chinese market dried up, and may be affecting turkey numbers and successful hatches nationally.
Weather, however, is very critical when the eggs are in the nest and particularly just after the turkey poults hatch. Turkey hens typically nest along drainages for the availability of water and insects, and, it is brushier so that they can hide their young from predators. Heavy rains at the wrong time wash out nests and drown poults.
Measuring hatches is an approximation based on hen and poult sightings throughout the summer and is done the same way each year. You cannot really tell what your hatch actually was until that year’s hatch is two years old and you then see those 2-year-old gobbler numbers in the harvest. They usually make up the majority of any spring turkey harvest unless those hatches are particularly low.
So, in summary, we cannot blame low turkey production on simply one factor in each area, even though there may be a common cause. With any luck, we had a better hatch last year than we observed, and hopefully we will have a good hatch this year if the rain dries up. Die-hard turkey hunters are typically optimists and look forward to each coming spring with hope and anticipation.