Chasing Spring Presents by Ray Eye
Author:Ray Eye
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00
Press photo showing the late Billy McCoy, Paul Butski, the late Ben Lee, and Ray Eye.
After a final sunrise and the last gobble of a recent Missouri spring turkey season slowly echoes away in the distance, Missouri turkey hunters reflect on their past season. For many, this is of what could have been. Mass confusion runs rampant through the ranks of these thousands of unsuccessful Missouri turkey hunters. Griping and complaining grows louder and louder to whoever will listen. The interesting part is, for those who didn’t get a turkey, the season was terrible; for those who took gobblers, it was the best turkey season in years.
The season is off, the season is too late, the season was too early, and gobblers are “henned up” are the main topics in every camp, coffee shop, and sporting goods store. But after the Missouri Department of Conservation check-in process is completed, the final tally reflects a pretty successful season. The spring season’s harvest total is the fourth highest kill ever, even with 3,000 fewer permits sold.
As much as I hate to say it, things are changing in my home state. For many years, no state could compare to Missouri’s quality hunting and intense gobbling activity. Well, turkey hunters, Missouri is beginning to experience what hunters from other states experience each spring—little or no gobbling. To further study and gather additional information, I scheduled hunts across our entire state. I hunted the Ozarks in southern Missouri, central Missouri, and north Missouri. In addition, I hunted both the east side and the west side of the state.
In addition to my personal observations, I worked very closely with professional guides, outfitters, outdoor writers, and other television crews hunting all across our state. I kept in close contact throughout the season by cell phone and e-mail, receiving daily turkey reports from their areas on gobbling activity, or lack thereof, hunting pressure, and weather.
So what was wrong with the turkeys this past season? Well, sorry, but nothing; they were just being turkeys: roosting, eating, pooping, and breeding, just like every other spring.
From this research, past years of research, and from years of my turkey hunting experience, I have to conclude there are several factors or reasons for all the complaining and decreased gobbling intensity in Missouri and elsewhere as well. Both Missouri hunters and nonresidents who experienced our Missouri wild turkey boom of the 1980s and early 1990s are the hunters who complain the most. Why all the complaining? Missouri hunters are just not experiencing the gobbling activity they did during those glory years.
This “perfect world” of turkey hunting is exactly what we all experienced in the 1980s and early 1990s, during a time when Missouri wild turkeys were expanding into new habitat, the state’s flock was on the move, growing by leaps and bounds. Brood hen hatches were going through the roof, and gobbling was nonstop all morning and most of the day. Wild turkeys since that time have reached their maximum expansion within our state, with virtually all prime habitats holding birds.
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