Change Isn't So Different This Spring
(Staff Photo By Steve Knight)
BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Finding turkeys running in flocks, like these jakes which were part of a group of five, was not unusual during this spring turkey season in Texas. Some hens still haven’t nested.
VANCOURT - A lot had changed in the three weeks since I was first on the Denis Ranch in Concho and Tom Green counties. Finding gobblers that wanted to work wasn't one of them.
The mesquites are now in full bloom and the pasture grasses are bright green. The ranch had gotten a few spring rains, but the winter wet spots had disappeared to warming weather and southern winds.
What hasn't changed, despite it being the last weekend of the season, is that hens are still running in groups chaperoned by toms.
Even though the number of hens with toms had slimmed down, the old guys must be about to wear out trying to keep up with the young girls. They have apparently been at it for months, not weeks, based on the sighting Saturday of poults running down a ranch road with their mother.
That had to be a hen bred sometime in early March.
This is the kind of spring season that even has experts shaking their heads.
Steve Knight
"It has been a weird year. I was just up in Kansas and they were telling me the birds there will not respond. It is not just a Texas deal. I saw it in Oklahoma too. The birds just wouldn't respond to a call," said Jason Hardin, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's turkey program leader.
"I think there were a ton of jakes," added Scotty Parsons, East Texas regional biologist with the National Wild Turkey Federation. "Most people I talked to had little success at calling mature birds."
In Texas the same story repeats from south to north. Breeding activity has been delayed.
Both biologists agree it is understandable in South Texas, where a short-term drought had an impact. Once the rain started, the birds responded. Hardin had evidence of that through a study using more than 100 hens fitted with radio tracking collars.
"As far as South Texas, just before the rain we had one bird on a nest. The area got some rain, and almost as soon as it stopped the hens started going to nest," he noted.
Parsons, who hunts south of San Antonio, saw the difference.
"I don't think the hens were in breeding condition before the beginning of the season. We didn't get a rain from December until the first of April. That is what I think happened," the biologist said.
As for a hen in Concho County leading poults through a pasture, that tells a completely different story.
"If you are looking at an average clutch of 12 eggs, you are looking at a day to lay each egg and 28 days of incubation, that would mean she was bred at least 40 days ago. That would say something about the bird being in pretty good physical condition to be able to pull off a clutch. It would be a mature bird," Hardin said.
While the spring greening was delayed by late cold weather, the area had come through the winter in fairly good shape. However, this ranch is also dotted with free-choice protein feeders, something deer managers refer to as "rain in a sack." The turkeys have located the feeders and making daily trips to them.
Whether that helped a turkey get in nesting condition early is up for debate. NWTF's Parsons says no, and the fact that so many other hens statewide were slow going to nest with the amount of protein now offered seems to bare out his opinion.
Hardin, however, sees the potential benefit, but is also wary of side affects.
"It could provide the nutrition you need, but you still need the rain for good habitat. If the habitat is in fair condition and you get that nutrition, it might help," Hardin said.
Not wanting to encourage hunters and landowners to rely on the protein pellets, he warns that its use could concentrate birds making them more susceptible to spreading disease or predation. The feed could also contain aflatoxin and cause birds to die.
"I think there is as much negative as positive," Hardin said.
With the season closed it is time to look toward next spring, or really the spring afterwards. A huge number of jakes on the ground this year is going to mean a large number of mature birds in a couple of years to come.
Two years from now is also the quickest TPWD can correct a misguided change in the boundary line between the North and South zones.
A number of upper counties in the South Zone need to be returned to the North Zone where they have been traditionally. Just days before the South season closed, hunters in some of those counties experienced the best hunting of the season. Those counties need to be put back in the North Zone to increase opportunity.
However, the regulation process to make a change for next spring has already passed. The department has to move now to get it done for the 2009-10 season.
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