Woods Wise
Turkey Season Opens In Eastern Texas Tuesday
KNIGHT
Turkey hunting in East Texas isn't hanging on by a thread, but it also isn't well anchored.
Last spring, hunters in 43 counties with eastern wild turkeys took 323 gobblers during the month-long season, keeping alive a string of seasons with 300 or more that started in 2000.
The 13th modern-day Eastern turkey season opens Tuesday. The prospects aren't outstanding for the same reason they are good for Texas hunters in the Rio Grande range.
"The rains that are so good for Rios probably did more harm for the Easterns," said Jason Hardin, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's turkey program leader. "Rain is not a limiting factor except when you have too much. We also had snow on the ground in April. There wasn't a good hatch and there was not a lot of survival on the poults."
Hardin said the counties that have traditionally become the best in East Texas - Lamar and Red River to the north and U.S. Forest Service lands in San Augustine, Sabine and Angelina, should remain the best options.
Restocking Eastern wild turkeys in Texas has been a struggle. Once bountiful in the Pineywoods and Post Oak regions, the first generation timber harvest and unrestricted hunting took a toll more than 100 years ago. The birds were completely gone by the 1920s.
— Staff Photo By Steve Knight
EASTERN HUNT: There has been a spring turkey season in East Texas since 1995. Since 2000, more than 300 gobblers have been killed annually.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has attempted to reintroduce the birds multiple times, going back to the 1950s. However, the early efforts, which didn't use pure Eastern turkeys, were major failures. The program didn't turn the corner toward success until the late 1970s when it began purchasing Eastern birds from other states. Between 1979 and 2003, the bulk of the stocking effort, the department released more than 7,000 turkeys it received from 12 states.
Because of the fragmented ownership and changing landscape in East Texas, finding suitable stocking sites was difficult. The department looked for 5,000-acre contiguous blocks of habitat that were stocked with three toms and either nine or 12 hens. In all, the department identified almost 200 stocking sites in the Pineywoods, 100 in the Post Oak regions and another 28 in Gulf Coast Prairie counties.
The stockings were a success in some counties, most notably along the Red River where there is farming alongside the timber. The birds have also done well in the national forests, where prescribed birds are much more common than on private property.
In the long run it is burning that may make the difference in timberlands.
"Some say East Texas is not great habitat," Hardin said. "Our weakness is the lack of fire. We don't burn enough and there is too much understory of undesirable woody plants. The whole Southeast (United States) is like that. If we can continue to promote fire and more use it and clean up the understory I think the birds have a lot of potential."
Thinking that the initial stocking rates may have been too light, the department, in conjunction with Stephen F. Austin State University, is researching a superstocking in which 20 gobblers and 60 hens are released. The department stocked the birds on 20,000-acre cooperative tracts in Anderson and Nacogdoches counties in 2007.
Under the original stocking formula, any bird mortality or loss of birds through movement to another tract could make the release site a failure from the beginning.
"We are trying to see if this will allow us to get over the hump," Hardin said. "We have radio collars on most of the toms and about half of the hens. I think that by putting in such a large group that they have a better chance to survive."
Hardin said the collars are expected to last three more years, giving biologists a chance to follow the birds' survival and population for a five-year period.
Eastern wild turkeys are one of five sub-species found in the U.S., along with the Rio Grande, Merriams, Gould and Osceola.
A mature Eastern tom is slightly taller and heavier than a Rio Grande.
The biggest difference between the two is the color of the tail feathers. The Eastern gobbler has chestnut brown-tipped tail coverts and dark buff or brown tail tips. The Rio Grande's tail tips are more yellow in tint.
Successful hunters in East Texas are required to take their birds to an area check station. This has given the department good harvest data over the years.
The 300-plus bird run includes the years from 2000-2004 when the season was 14 days long. The high harvest came in 2005 when hunters took 433 Eastern gobblers.
Despite the extended season, the bulk of the successful hunting continues to occur during the first two weeks of April.
Unlike the Rio Grande turkey range with its liberal regulations, Eastern turkey hunting in Texas is limited to shotgun, lawful archery equipment or crossbow, with a one-gobbler bag limit. Hunters may also not hunt over bait.
All harvested Eastern turkeys must be taken to a check station within 24 hours. To find the check station nearest you, contact a TPWD field office or call (800) 792-1112 or go online at http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/season/stations.
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