Fall Forecast: Mild to Moderate
A Chat with Bob Eriksen, NWTF director of conservation operations
Wild Turkey Biology
Q: What impact do turkeys have on pheasant and quail populations? It seems like turkey populations are really increasing and other game birds are at record lows.
— Bob Hacker, Neb.
A: The bottom line is that wild turkeys do not impact quail or pheasant populations at all. Turkeys are habitat generalists that can use many types of terrain. On the other hand, quail and pheasants are closely associated with agricultural fields and what is known as early successional habitat in the form of grasslands and abandoned fields.
The key to maintaining good quail and ringneck numbers is habitat management. It is essential to keep early successional habitat on the landscape for both birds. Unfortunately habitat management is expensive and requires constant work. Habitat does not remain static. Instead, old fields tend to turn into forests over time. These forested areas provide turkey habitat but do not contribute to adequate bobwhite or ringneck range. Work needs to be done on both private and public lands to improve habitat for game birds associated with fields. This can be done through conservation groups and state and federal habitat enhancement programs like the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP).
Q: This question concerns fall plumage of the turkey. Most serious turkey hunters are aware that the tail fan of a spring jake will have longer tail feathers in the center of the fanned tail. I have seen both mothers and young birds in the fall without the longer center tail feathers.
At what point in the turkey’s life do the center tail feathers appear longer and does it occur in both sexes? Is it possible to identify age and/or sex of a turkey by just the feathers other than the black tipped breast feathers of the male or the feathers going up the neck of the hen?
— Bruce Fuller, Trout Creek, N.Y.
A: Wild turkeys moult and replace their major tail feathers, known as retrices, in pairs from the center out toward the edges for the tail fan each year. Typically there are 18 feathers in the tail fan. Adult turkeys of both sexes have even tail fans, but if the fall season opens early enough the central tail feathers of adult turkeys may appear slightly shorter than the adjacent feathers because they are not fully in place. By late October this is usually not the case.
Young wild turkeys that hatch in May or June begin to replace their juvenile tail feathers in the early fall. Depending on when the young birds hatched, they will replace anywhere from one to four pairs of retrices before the moult slows down and stops in November. The adult tail feathers in the center portion of the tail are longer than the adjacent feathers giving the tail a “stepped up” or uneven appearance. Juvenile birds with an even tail fan in the fall season are either late hatched birds that have not replaced the central tail feathers, or the feathers are just growing in and have not attained their full length. By winter in either case, the juveniles will all have uneven tail fans, though some will have replaced more retrices than others.
Aging wild turkeys in the field is best done by observing the tail fan. In hand, the outermost primary wing feathers can be used to age a turkey. There are 10 primary feathers, the major flight feathers. In juveniles during the fall season, primaries number nine and 10 are unbarred an inch or so from the tip. In adult turkeys of both sexes the primaries are barred with white all the way to the tip. The secondary covert feathers may be used to age turkeys from a distance, but you really have to know exactly what to look for when using this technique.
Leg color can be used to a degree to age turkeys. Adult turkeys have pink legs. Juvenile turkeys have darker legs best described as mahogany or brownish. Their legs will lighten in color as they get older.
Gobblers can be distinguished from hens first by looking at their heads. Gobblers have naked and colorful heads. In the fall, the primary color is red. Hens have blue-gray heads that may be fairly heavily feathered or have a line of feathers running up the back of the neck. Gobbler breast feathers are tipped with a black line. Those of hens are tipped with a tan or buff-colored line giving the breast a brown appearance at a distance. Gobbler breasts appear to be black at a distance. In hand, the presence of spurs is a reliable method of sexing turkeys although this method is not 100 percent accurate. Better yet is the length of the leg or the size of the foot. Hens have small feet, measuring about 4-1/2 inches from the tip of the center toe to the tip of the hind toe. Gobbler feet measure 5-1/2 to 6 inches.
Q: Where I live in upstate New York, Montgomery County, a majority of turkey hunters — not including myself — frown upon shooting birds in the fall. They believe shooting hens kills a lot of future poults and turkeys in the area and also believe shooting the toms will hurt their spring chances for success, How would you address these anti-fall hunters on their views?
— Michael Auriemma, Amsterdam, N.Y.
A: The decision whether or not to shoot a hen in the fall season is an entirely personal one. Wildlife agencies plan and structure fall seasons to provide recreational opportunity without jeopardizing the wild turkey resource. A limited harvest of turkeys of either sex can be taken annually without too much impact on turkey numbers. The strategy is that a number of the turkeys alive in the fall will not be alive next spring whether you hunt them or not. This is called the “harvestable surplus.” Taking less than 10 percent of the population in the fall will not necessarily affect turkey numbers in the future.
Biologists believe that a limited fall harvest is compensatory. In other words, hunters do not increase the naturally occurring mortality provided that the harvest is conservative. Wild turkeys can only be “stockpiled” for so long. When it is determined that the turkey population can withstand some fall harvest, it makes sense to have a season. Individual landowners and groups of landowners can decide not to allow fall hunting in an effort to bolster turkey numbers on the lands, but this approach is not guaranteed to mean more turkeys for next spring.
Q: This question deals with turkey biology rather than tactics. I live in Iowa and have shot several longbeards in the fall that I know were at least three years old, but rarely have they weighed more than 20 pounds even though food is abundant in the fall.
Yet a majority of the birds I shoot in the spring weigh at least 24 pounds with several even weighing 27 or 28 pounds. These birds were often shot in the middle of April after extremely hard winters with lots of snow cover. Logic would say that a turkey should weigh the most in the fall before the cold weather hits. How can they gain weight during the winter and are the heaviest when the snow is deep and food is scarce?
— Gary Reeder, Manchester, Iowa
A: It is hard to believe, but gobblers actually do weigh more in the spring than in the fall. Tom turkeys are their lightest in the summer months when the moult is requiring calories. When the moult slows and calorie consumption remains static or increases as acorns and other fatty foods are available, their weight begins to increase.
Gobblers begin to bulk up in the fall and often weigh more in early winter than they did in the early fall. In spite of tough winters, gobblers usually maintain a fairly steady body weight through the winter. Their daily movements are limited and they conserve calories by being a bit less active than at other times of the year. In late winter gobblers are able to find some high quality foods in the form of waste grain and wild vegetation that is quickly greening up. Late winter food is not as scarce as we humans would imagine. The birds feed heavily and develop fat deposits internally and in the form of breast sponge. Breast sponge adds considerable weight to a gobbler, perhaps as much as a pound or more.
Q: I have hunted for 30 years now and remember calling in my first gobbler in 1978 in Pennsylvania. I work in Hudson County, N.J., and in the past several years wild turkeys are appearing in cities and suburbs in greater numbers where I wouldn’t have ever believed possible.
How are these birds migrating into metropolitan areas and are they surviving and reproducing in human-populated areas?
— Ronald Smiglewski, North Arlington, N.J.
A: Wild turkeys have the ability to colonize new areas if there is a way to get there. In many urban and suburban areas of the East and the Midwest, there are wooded corridors along streams and rivers and greenways that have been created by development patterns. Wild turkeys and other wildlife such as deer, and even black bears, use these travel lanes and sometimes wind up where they don’t belong.
Turkeys can move long distances when dispersing from their natal area (where they were hatched and raised). In the case of deer and turkeys, some of the parks and riparian woods have trees that are mature, producing mast and providing roosts. Though there are predators using the parks and greenways, there are fewer of them than in a rural landscape. Survival of wild turkeys in these circumstances can be quite good. However, in such situations turkeys are often fed by well-meaning people. While this can assist them in surviving and reproducing, it can also tame them down and reduce their fear of people.
After a couple of generations the birds can cease to view humans as a potential threat and even become aggressive toward them. In suburbia wild turkeys and other large wildlife can become a nuisance causing people to view them negatively.
Q: When fall turkey hunting with a bow, I have heard may experts say to aim for the wing butt. Can you explain to me where that is on a turkey?
— Doug Thompson, Lutz, Fla,
A: Think of the turkey without feathers. The wing has three joints: the shoulder, the elbow and the wrist. Think of the end of the wing where the primary wing feathers are as the “hand.” The wing butt is actually the shoulder of the bird. When its wing is folded, the “wrist” is forward and the “elbow” is behind it. The shoulder joint lies just above and slightly ahead of the elbow joint near the backbone of the bird.
If you shoot for the shoulder, you stand a chance of severing the spinal cord. If you shoot for the “elbow” on the folded wing (a difference of an inch or two) you will likely pass the arrow through the body cavity, also a good shot. On a strutting bird, the wing is extended. Shoot just above the “elbow” joint in that situation. The target is small, no larger than the area of two fists end to end.
Q: For years I have heard that the main reason the wild turkey population got to such low numbers several decades ago was because of fall hunting. Turkeys are in flocks and while hunters were out for other game and they came upon a flock, one shot could kill several birds.
I am 48 years old and I think our season started again in North Carolina in 1973. As a young child if I saw a turkey track that was something special. So with all the progress that has been made in the last 40 or so years in restoring the wild turkey population, why have a fall season?
— Rick Dailey, Burlington, N.C.
A: Your question is a good one and one that is frequently asked where turkey populations have been restored. Wild turkey numbers dropped precipitously in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s in many areas of the East due to habitat loss as the forests were cut too heavily.
At the same time, over-harvest of remaining flocks took place because of unregulated or poorly regulated hunting. Today a large percentage of turkey hunters began to hunt turkeys as spring seasons were opened after restoration efforts were completed. Wildlife agencies opened spring seasons first because that season has less potential to impact turkey populations. Therefore, a lot of turkey hunters question the wisdom of fall seasons when hens may be taken.
Most state agencies have criteria they use to determine when it is time (if ever) to open an area to fall hunting. The criteria are usually a measure of the spring harvest and brood survey data. Once the harvest reaches a certain level and reproductive success appears to be good, biologists may propose opening a limited fall season. The key word is “limited” or conservative. A portion of the fall population may safely be taken providing hunters with additional chances to get in the woods. Biologists control the harvest by adjusting season length, limiting the number of birds that can be taken or controlling hunter numbers. In short, a well-planned fall season can be a wise use of the wild turkey resource under the right circumstances.
Q: Here in Ohio during the fall season we are allowed to take a turkey of either sex. Does it matter which we take? Is taking a hen going to adversely affect the turkey population? Will taking a tom or jake affect next spring’s hunt? Thank you.
— Brian Garls, Cincinnati, Ohio
A: Ohio has a relatively short fall turkey season. As is the case in other states where turkey hunters cut their teeth on a spring season, only a portion of the turkey hunters take advantage of the fall season. The fall harvest in Ohio is quite conservative. Taking an adult hen in the fall has the most potential impact on future turkey numbers but it is a minimal impact. Adult hens are experienced nesters and are apt to survive the winter. In general, young turkeys are more susceptible to harvest than older birds so you are somewhat more likely to take a juvenile hen or jenny in the fall.
Jakes are inquisitive and aggressive so fall hunters tend to take more jakes than any other age or sex group. Old gobblers are the least susceptible to fall harvest. That flock of old gobblers will break up in the spring and disperse to areas you may not be able to hunt. Removing one gobbler from that flock is not likely to affect your hunting next spring. The bottom line is that is does not really matter what sex or age group you harvest in the fall as long as you approach the season conservatively. If you and your friends hunt several properties, you might decide to limit the take in a certain farm or shoot only one or two birds out of a fall flock, leaving the rest.
