2009 Spring Turkey Summary
The 2009 Spring Turkey Season was a good one. What with all the jakes seen back in 2008, we predicted our spring hunting would be outstanding, but as with all things turkey, you just never know until the final bell rings.
Hindsight being 20/20, it seemed that the annual ritual of the turkeys might have been pushed back a little later this spring. As recently as a couple of weeks before the season, we were still seeing gobblers together and hens flocked up in bunches. Then, along about the opening of the season on April 4, the two sexes came together just like they are supposed to do. Numbers of turkeys were amazing, at least early in the season, except at the Mustang Ranch Camp. Then, a couple of weeks later, at that very same place, turkeys were found everywhere and finally, as has been its pattern for years, the Mustang Ranch was loaded with turkeys.
Over at the McManus Camp, Beaver reported increased numbers of birds by the middle part of the season. Sadly, no hunters were on hand to take advantage of this bonanza.
As the hunts at the Home Camp came and went, the birds scattered like their quail cousins. If only we had GPS units around the necks of all the birds. Hunter's reports of bird movements were a big help in understanding their spring migration patterns.
For the record, here are the results of all three of our spring turkey camps - the Home Camp, the McManus Camp, and the Mustang Ranch:
---41 hunters took 74 gobblers. 1.80 gobblers per hunter. No jakes were taken.
---12 hunters collected three each. Sixteen hunters took two each. Six hunters took a single bird. 7 hunters took zero birds.
---We tabulated at least 11 missed shots.
Outlook for 2010
As with all area outfitters, we were sadly underbooked for the spring turkey season. That's the bad news. The good news is that we have an extra-large carryover of gobblers for the future. In fact, we hunted only about half of our turkey area, and there are plenty of gobblers that remain to be hunted next season. There were a few, but not a lot of jakes. Spurs on the gobblers next year ought to be remarkable. The 2009 hatch is undetermined as this is being written the day after the season, but by June, we'll have a better idea. For sure, the hens seemed to be going through their nesting rituals, but someone once wisely said: "Don't count your poults before they hatch". Or something to that effect.
If pure-dee turkey hunting is your passion, give us a call to see if we have a date that will work for you in 2010.
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