Turkey season was strictly for the birds
Gobblers, hens far too content in lush nesting to go near hunters
Texas’ wild turkeys have had a hugely successful spring.
Many Texas turkey hunters didn’t. At least they didn’t if they gauge the general spring turkey hunting season, which ended with Sunday’s close of the state’s North Zone, by the number of adult toms they heard gobbling their heads off on the roost or answering hunters’ hen imitations and coming boldly and aggressively strutting into shotgun range.
“It was one of those seasons where the birds have you talking to yourself, wondering what’s going on,” said Bill Crowell, veteran turkey hunter and call maker who this season hunted Rio Grande turkeys in multiple places in the turkey-rich Hill Country and South Texas. “The birds didn’t act like they normally do. Very little gobbling. Birds ‘henned’ up; gobblers just ignoring you. It was tough.” Justin Hardin agrees. “It was a pretty challenging season for a lot of hunters, me included,” said Hardin, whose perspective comes from being a serious turkey hunter and coordinator of turkey management programs for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s wildlife division. “But for turkeys, it’s been a very good spring after a very good year.”
The latter is largely responsible for the former, he said. And this bodes well for Texas’ turkeys and turkey hunters.
“We’ve had phenomenal production in parts of the state last year, and we’re really looking good for this year,” Hardin said. “Hunters could see the benefits of this next spring.” Avoiding the jakes
A mild, wet winter and spring fueled an explosion of grasses, forbs and other vegetation that created near-perfect conditions for turkeys this past year. They had plenty of forage to build body condition ahead of the spring mating season, crucial to triggering the birds’ instincts to reproduce. The abundance of grasses and other low cover greatly increased the amount of nesting cover, reducing nest loss through predation. And even if hens lost their first nest, the mild, wet summer allowed them to renest.
“We had some hens that renested multiple times,” Hardin said.
The result was some of the best nesting success the state’s turkeys have seen in several years.
And that outstanding nesting success a year ago certainly played a role in the frustrations many Texas turkey hunters experienced this year.
“We have heaps of young hens and jakes ( juvenile gobblers) out there,” Hardin said. “Those birds are probably responsible for making this spring season such a challenge for hunters.”
Spring turkey hunting hinges on hunters being able to draw an adult (2-year-old or older) gobbler within shotgun range by using calls to imitate a hen, playing on adult gobblers’ aggressive pursuit of “unattached” hens the male bird wants to add to his harem.
Hunters have their best success at calling adult gobblers when competition for hens is high. Long-bearded toms are more likely to announce their presence through gobbling (allowing hunter to know their location), answer hen calls and come looking for the calling hen when hens are hard to find.
This year, that was not the case.
“Gobblers weren’t hurting for hens this season,” Hardin said.
The situation was exacerbated by a higherthan-normal percentage of first-year hens entering the mating game. In an average year, only about half of juvenile hens will attempt to reproduce, Hardin said. Most of the young birds aren’t physically or physiological prepared for the rigors of mating, egg production, nesting and brood rearing.
This year, however, habitat conditions have been so good — thanks to another mild, wet winter and spring — that many, perhaps most, first-year hens attempted to reproduce.
“When you have all those hens out there — the adult hens and all those juvenile hens — a gobbler doesn’t have to go looking for hens,” Hardin said.
That’s why so many hunters reported gobblers “henned up” (sticking with their harem of hens and ignoring calls) or “hanging up,” approaching a calling hunter but stopping beyond shotgun range and waiting for the hen to come to the gobbler.
And the abundance of available hens is certainly one of the reasons many hunters reported hearing much less gobbling this season.
“They didn’t have to gobble; they had all the hens they could handle,” Hardin said.
The adult toms had another reason not to announce their presence: jakes.
The juvenile gobblers, entering their first mating season and often running in gangs of three to six birds, are a constant bother and potential threat to adult gobblers. Gangs of jakes harass gobblers, trying to spirit away hens and even challenging the gobbler’s dominance.
“Jakes to gobblers are like swarms of gnats around your face when you’re hunting,” Hardin said. “They just drive you crazy.”
To avoid drawing attention of roving bands of jakes, adult gobblers keep their mouth shut, even when the adults are actively looking for hens.
“They just weren’t talking a lot this year,” Hardin said of adult gobblers, noting many hunters reported gobblers coming to hunters without ever gobbling. Success awaits in 2017
That certainly squares with personal experience this season.
During multiple hunts in South Texas and the Hill Country, some mornings and afternoons produced not a single gobble, even on the roost. Several times, groups of jakes showed up, mugging the decoys and sticking around to prevent any other gobbler from approaching. We had gobblers hang up. We had gobblers henned up. We had gobblers come in quiet, never uttering a sound until they saw the decoys and went into full strut, spinning and drumming. And our hunting success was down — way down — from previous seasons.
Hunting success in an average spring turkey season averages 40-50 percent, according to TPWD harvest surveys. And empirical evidence of overall hunting success during the 2016 spring season won’t be available for months. But anecdotal evidence indicates hunting success was down this year.
“It was a tough season for a lot of turkey hunters. I heard that a lot,” Hardin said.
But this spring could be a prelude to a much better — maybe spectacularly better — spring season in 2017.
Habitat conditions across much of Texas’ turkey range is as good or better than it was last year, thanks to a mild, wet winter and spring. Turkeys are in excellent body condition. Nesting cover is abundant and nesting success should be very good. Truth is, the first broods of turkey poults have been reported in the past week or so, Hardin said.
“Nesting cover is not a limiting factor this year, and you’ve got that increased nesting effort by those young hens,” he said. “There’s tons of green food and lots of fruit out there for the birds to eat.”
Also, all those year-old jakes from the Class of 2015 will be 2-year-old adult gobblers when the 2017 spring season opens.
“We’re setting the stage for what could be a great season next year and the next year,” Hardin said.
After this season, Texas’ turkey hunters certainly could use one.