Hunting Turkeys or Putting Meat on the Table

This is the third in a three part series on the Eastern Turkey located in Iowa and Nebraska.  Right now, I am just waiting for the weather to turn more springlike, and for the turkey season to open in Nebraska.  I am also waiting for the return of the snow geese as they make their way north to their nesting grounds.  If  hunters are in the blind at the right time, they will get some excellent shooting.



This article is taken from the Iowa DNR website and you can review it in more depth at the following website. (http://www.iowadnr.gov/wildlife/pdfs/wild_turkey.pdf)

Hunting Turkeys

The eastern wild turkey offers one of the most challenging hunting experiences available today and appeals only to the most dedicated outdoorsmen. Wild turkeys have extremely keen senses of sight and hearing and are normally able to avoid human contact so successfully that hunters often do not detect their presence. The instincts for survival are most highly developed among adult gobblers, making them among the most sought after trophies in North America today.

Turkeys are hunted during two seasons – spring and fall – which are differentiated by styles of hunting and the primary quarry. Spring gobbler hunting is most widespread because shooting males has no impact on the future growth or dispersal of turkey populations, even at the new release sites. Turkeys are promiscuous, with only the largest, most dominant males obtaining harems of a dozen or more hens. Non-breeding males are thus available to hunters at no cost to the population. Even heavily hunted areas seldom sustain hunting losses of as many as 50% of the adult males.

The principal spring hunting method is to locate toms gobbling from the roost at daylight and attempt to call them to the hunter by imitating the yelps, clucks, cackles and whines of a hen ready to mate. Hunters wear camouflage clothing and sit completely motionless for as long as several hours to escape detection by keen-eyes gobblers. Success rates for spring hunters in most states average about 30-40%, but are in the 50-60% range in most of Iowa because of the excellent turkey densities found here. Because 10% of the hens also have beards (the hair-like appendage hanging from a tom’s breast), any bearded turkey is legal game in the spring.

Fall turkey hunts usually are allowed only in states with well established turkey populations. In Iowa, the combination of excellent turkey populations and a decrease in fall hunting demand, has allowed a 3 bird bag limit, until the quota is filled. More young poults are produced than survive the rigors of winter and escape from predators to reach the breeding season, thus allowing limited fall hunting before much of this natural mortality takes place.


The most common fall hunting technique is to locate a flock of turkeys, scatter them as widely as possible, and call back broods by imitating the assembly yelps and clucks of the adult hen or kee-kee of lost poults. Gobblers are not particularly interested in finding hens in the fall, making them extremely difficult to call and shoot. Inexperienced young turkeys return readily to the hen and commonly make up 60% or more of fall harvests. Fall hunters also use complete camouflage. The results of Iowa’s hunting seasons can be found at: http://www.iowadnr.com/wildlife/files/trkindex.html.

Populations

Because of their dependence on variable mast production for food in areas where large tracts provide typical turkey habitat, good populations normally average about 10 turkeys per square mile of forest over much of eastern turkey range. In agricultural states like Iowa, the presence of abundant food contributes to densities at least twice this great, and may reach 40-60 turkeys per square mile in the best habitats.

Turkeys breed only in the spring. Hens join harems attached to a dominant gobbler, but may breed with any available male. Nests are poorly formed bowls completely on the ground and contain 6-18 eggs (average 11 per clutch). Hens of all ages attempt to nest, but yearling hens are seldom successful and 80% of the poults will be produced by 2 year old or older hens. Nests have been found in most habitat types from dense forest, brush, grown up pastures, fence lines, to alfalfa fields.

Hens incubate 28 days before the eggs hatch. Typically 30-60% of hens will attempt renesting after losing a clutch to cold, wet weather or predators, with about 40-60% of the adult hens will eventually hatch a clutch. Hens do all the brood rearing, and life is precarious for newly hatched poults with over half dieing in the first 4 weeks. Of the poults surviving to fall, 35% of the young hens will be lost to predators, primarily coyotes. Few young or adult turkeys are lost during the winter in most of Iowa, but starvation may occur where deep snows for a prolonged period keep flocks from moving to food sources.

Spring is a major mortality period for both sexes, and many hens are lost to predators after winter flocks break up and breeding activities begin, and toms fall prey primarily to hunters. Annual survival rates average 57% for females and 35% for males.



Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck. Hank

Turkey Habitat, or How to Find Them.

This is the second of three parts on turkeys in Iowa. Last week it was the history of establishing turkeys in Iowa. Today I want to outline the habits of turkeys hunted in Nebraska and Iowa. The information is from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website. All the state websites are excellent, but as I live in Iowa, I read it first. (http://www.iowadnr.gov/wildlife/pdfs/wild_turkey.pdf)

I always like to learn as much about the habits of the game I hunt: Where they roam, what they eat at the various times, and what time of the day they appear in certain places. These are pieces of information that will help to have a successful hunt.



Wild turkeys are primarily birds of the forest. The eastern subspecies found in Iowa and most of the United States east of the Missouri River thrives in mature oak-hickory forests native to this region. Turkeys primarily eat nuts, seeds and berries (collectively called mast) produced in greatest abundance in middle-aged to mature stands of oak trees. Turkeys are large, strong-walking birds capable of covering a range of 1-2 square miles in a day, searching for suitable food items by scratching in leaf litter. These “scratching” – piles of leaves adjacent to a small plot of bare earth – are characteristic in good turkey habitat and indicate that turkeys have been feeding in the immediate area.



In winter, turkeys rely primarily on mast for food, although in Iowa and other agricultural states they are capable of substituting waste grain in harvested corn and soybean fields, where it is available adjacent to timber. When snow covers their native foods, or mast crops fail, corn fields supply an important supplemental food capable of carrying turkeys through winter stress periods in excellent condition. Turkeys are often seen in crop fields during the winter taking advantage of the waste grain in the fields in Iowa. Large flocks of turkeys observed in crop fields have raised concerns of crop depredation by agricultural producers. Wild turkeys are actually beneficial to crop fields, since they primarily consume insects out of fields during the spring and summer. To address these concerns, a crop depredation
pamphlet was developed by the DNR. For more information on crops and wild turkeys, see the crop depredation pamphlet at: www.iowadnr.com/wildlife/pdfs/turkeybrochure.pdf, or stop in your local DNR wildlife office.



In spring and summer, a turkey’s diet switches to a wide variety of seeds, insects and green leafy material. Protein derived from insects is especially important to rapidly growing poults during their first weeks after hatching and to adults replacing feathers after their annual summer molt. Hayfields, restored native grasses, and moderately grazed pastures are excellent producers of insects and are heavily utilized by turkey broods where they are interspersed with suitable forest stands. These grassy areas also provide suitable nesting sites. Turkeys roost at night in trees year around, except for hens sitting on a nest. Any tree larger than 4 inches in diameter at breast height may serve as a roost tree, but larger, mature trees are most often used. Eastern turkeys shift their nest sites almost daily, seldom roosting in the same tree two nights in succession. Certain areas of their home range (area a turkey occupies throughout a season) may be used more heavily than other locations (e.g. a ridge of large trees near a feeding area or a stand of large evergreen trees during very cold weather).

In Iowa, the abundance of food and nesting areas in non-forested habitats (corn fields, pastures, hayfields, restored native grasses) has allowed turkeys to survive in areas where forests are limited. In traditional turkey range, minimum timber requirements of 10,000 continuous acres of mature forests are commonly thought to be necessary for wild turkeys. Research indicates that areas with a 50:50 ratio of forest with properly managed non-forested habitats is ideal turkey range, and a minimum of 1,000 acres of timber is ideal to allow a turkey population to thrive. Since the restoration of wild turkeys to Iowa, turkeys have been found in small 2-3 acre woodlots, much to the surprise of wildlife managers.

Shotgun season in Nebraska opens up April 15th to May 31st. Iowa will have its usual different season times. If I hunt Iowa, I have my best luck the last season.

Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck. Hank
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Wild Turkeys of Iowa - Restoration

The hunting season is over as of January 31st.  Now hunters have to wait for Turkey season to open. Hopefully the weather will improve and the snow geese will come through on their way to their nesting grounds.  It is an excellent opportunity if you are there at the right time.  I have looked through the on line hunting and fishing catalogs.  Now listed is a section for turkey hunting gear and snow goose hunting equipment.  All the big box stores have some great clearance sales. With the up and coming turkey season and snow goose migration each store has some excellent buys.






Iowa and Nebraska have an abundance of wild turkeys and they make excellent dining opportunities.  I hunt them spring and fall.  The article below is from the Iowa DNR website on the establishment of turkeys in Iowa.  This is an excellent read and will make you an authority.

WILD TURKEY RESTORATION

The Eastern wild turkey was found throughout Iowa when the first settlers crossed the Mississippi River in the 1830's. Oak-hickory forests covered nearly 7 million acres and settler's records indicate turkeys occurred wherever timber existed. Turkeys may not have been as numerous in Iowa as in their primary
range east of the Mississippi River, but they were plentiful enough to be used as table fare and appeared in markets for 50 cents apiece. Uncontrolled hunting and habitat loss led to the elimination of turkeys from Iowa. By 1956, the primitive forests had been reduced to only 2.6 million acres and most likely a majority of the remaining forest was badly mismanaged through overgrazing. Turkeys were eliminated from some northeast Iowa counties by 1854, only 20 years after the first settlers arrived, and turkey populations were
badly depleted in southern Iowa by 1900.

Rugged topography protected some timbered parcels in northeast and southcentral Iowa from mechanized clearing and turkeys may have survived had indiscriminate hunting been controlled.  Unfortunately, hunting was not controlled and the last wild turkey harvested was in Lucas County in 1907. The last verified
sighting of a wild turkey was in 1910, also in Lucas County.

As with many other midwestern states, the initial attempts to restore turkeys to available habitat were made
with pen-reared turkeys. Although records are incomplete, they do show at least 6 releases made at several scattered locations across the state between 1920-38. All releases are assumed to have failed and by 1960 there were still no wild turkeys existing in Iowa. 1960-66

In the 1950's the rocket net, a new capture technique, was developed and allowed state agencies to capture and transplant native wild turkeys. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), encouraged by success in other states with transplanted wild stock, attempted releases of non-Eastern subspecies in the
1960's. Thirty-nine Rio Grande turkeys from Texas were released in Allamakee County  in 1960-61. Thirteen Merriam's turkeys were released in Lucas County and 8 Merriam's turkeys were released in Monona County in 1966. Both subspecies failed to establish thriving populations or expand their distribution. Neither subspecies was adapted to Iowa's climateor habitat and experienced poor survival and no brood production.

1966 Eleven wild turkeys caught in Missouri in 1966 were the first Eastern subspecies released in Iowa. They were released into Iowa's largest contiguous remaining timber block (Shimek State Forest, release site #1). Reproduction and poult survival of these turkeys was excellent and winter flock size increased
dramatically reaching 400-500 turkeys by 1974.

1968

The success of the Shimek Forest release led to a second stocking of another 19 Missouri turkeys (Eastern subspecies) into Stephens State Forest (SSF). The turkeys did equally well in SSF and grewto a 400-500 bird flock by 1974. Within 3 years, turkeys at both forest sites began expanding onto adjacent private forests and by 1971 it was obvious that this was the correct subspecies to be used for all future restoration attempts.

1969

In 1969, 10 supposedly Eastern lineage turkeys from North Dakota were released along the Upper Iowa River. Although the turkeys survived and reproduced their population growth was minimal compared to the turkeys released in Shimek and Stephens Forests.

1971

In 1971, 10 additional North Dakota turkeys were released in Yellow River State Forest. The combined population growth of the turkeys from the 1969 and 1971 releases reached only 140 turkeys by 1974 and then declined. Apparently these turkeys were better adapted to North Dakota's open brushy habitat and were unable to adapt to Iowa's oak-hickory forest.

1972-2000

Turkey numbers had grown rapidly enough at Shimek and Stephens Forests that by the winter of 1971-72 the IDNR was able to trap turkeys in-state and transplant to other potential habitats. Since 1965, 3,583 Eastern wild turkeys have been trapped and released at 260 different sites scattered across the state. Generally, turkeys have been released at the rate of 10 hens and 3 adult gobblers per site.

OUT-OF-STATE SHIPMENTS

Eastern turkeys adapted so well to habitat conditions in Iowa that by 1980 the DNR decided to start trading turkeys for other extripated wildlife. From 1980-2001, 7,501 Iowa turkeys have been traded for 356 prairie chickens, 596 ruffed grouse, over 180 river otters, over 80 sharp-tailed grouse, and over 3.2 million dollars to purchase Iowa habitat with 11 states and 1 Canadian province. No out-of-stateshipments have occurred since 2001.

FUTURE

The restoration of wild turkeys in Iowa is complete. Almost all suitable habitat has received at least 1 release of Eastern wild turkeys and all (since 1965) have been successful. Any additional releases will be coordinated by district management biologists within their own district. Most sites that will be stocked are very small parcels of timber or are marginal habitat. The goal now is to maintain and to wisely manage existing turkey populations.

The following article is from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. http://www.iowadnr.gov/wildlife/files/files/turkey_restoration.pdf

Go to KFAB radio in Omaha on the web, and there is a video of a flock of turkeys in a residential neighborhood. One really big tom, and he has an attitude.
Good hunting, good fishing and good luck Hank
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Two Tags and Down to the Wire

I was down to the wire with three more days left and two tags along with two people each waiting to get a tasty young Iowa Doe.  I seem to do a lot of down to the wire hunting when it comes to turkeys and deer.  This time it was different.  It has been really really, I have to say that twice, cold. 

I had the opportunity to hunt my old haunt next to the levee along the Missouri River, but whenever I scouted the area, I saw few fresh tracks, and no deer at all.  With the flooding that took place along the river last spring and summer, they may have moved out to higher ground or just farther east into some additional stands of timber.  It was back to the land north of Oakland, IA, where I have had success earlier this year.

All of a sudden the weather changed and upon getting ready to go I saw it was really foggy.  In fact, I could hardly see across the street.  Heading to Oakland, driving across Iowa at times was like being on a roller coaster.  Up and down the hills I went. What was interesting was that the fog hung on the top half of the hills and the bottoms were clear.  It was like a cloud bank had settled just above the low areas of the ground.  With this in mind, I might have good visibility along the river bottom.  Not so, the fog was there, but not as bad.  Stumbling along, I made it to the area I wanted to hunt.  I sat right under a tree and faced the west towards the timber, and waited.  Visibility improved, and I could see about 100 yards, but nothing appeared.  The landowner called me, and I told him where I was sitting.  He then drove to the north end of his woods and wove around until he reached me.  He flushed nothing, but it was nice to have someone drive.  Next he went south, and tried it again, but nothing came up from the south.  By now it was 10 AM, and I headed for home.  In the evening, I went over to the levee along the river, but saw nothing.  Two more days to go.

The next morning, I was up and into the south end of the timber.  The wind was light from the north.
The landowner called me around 8 AM asking if I had seen anything. The answer was NO.  He got into his truck and drove the ground again.  Just about the time I heard his engine, out of the south end of the timber stepped three anterless deer.  At 30 yards, I took the first one. She was a nice mature doe.  This would make for excellent dining.  The other two headed off to the east.

We dressed her out and loaded up the doe. The landowner then headed down south to see if he could drive some up toward me.  It was a possibility.  The wind had shifted to more of an easterly direction, so I would not get winded.  After an hour, I heard the engine of the truck and he appeared.  Nothing came by me so I called it quits, not only for the day, but for the season. The temps would be in single digits the next day, and I had reached my limit of cold weather.  I was one short, but the two people I was hunting for could split this one.  She was a nice mature doe.  The pictures at the bottom show the ground I was hunting.  In places the snow was over my knees.  This is Iowa in the winter.

Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck.

Hank



At the south end of the timber facing north.  I harvested a deer from this location



I sat under this tree in the fog and faced west into the timber,  Corn and pasture behind me.



Looking west from the tree.  This should have been a good place, but nothing came down the lane to my right.



Looking north up the lane where I was expecting the deer to come down.  It is really good looking ground.







 


 


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