Poult Watch

[Machias]

How about reporting here when you see your first turkey poults.  Thanks!

[WAcoyotehunter]

I saw a clutch yesterday in Pend Orielle county.  tough to count in the deep grass...maybe 10.

[woodswalker]

8 up in the Taneum on Sunday, I think..they were vacating the area at a high rate of speed.

[bigdave]

I have 10 in my garage....does that count?    Two weeks old and they fly like sparrows.

[Machias]

Well very cool!  Thanks guys, I hadn't seen any yet.  I will tell you one thing, the weather the last few days has been PERFECT poult hatching weather.  Should have a good hatch this year.

[ratherhunt]

Hunted in Twisp saw a 3 or 4 hens with poults, I took my 11 year old daughter she had a blast. There were at least 6 poults with each hen.Only Tom we saw was huge but it was in the lawn of a church wish I had taken a camera.

[bowhunterforever]

Anybody see any turkey chicks lately? I have been looking for some but havent found any yet. Normaly i would have seen some by now.

[boneaddict]

Saw a few up the road from me.  Lost about 50% of the quail to that hail.  Haven't seen any wild pheasant babies and have seena couple hens. 

[bowhunterforever]

Anybody see any turkey chicks lately? I have been looking around for them but haven't seen any! I have seen plenty of hens but they don't have any chicks. Hope this isn't a bad hatch year!

[Machias]

There was two hens and 13 poults in my driveway yesterday.  They were still pretty small.  I wonder if something happen to some of the first hatches and this is the second hatch?

[Jerbear]

Had a hen and 8-10 poults with her.  They can fly, so not a late hatch.  there was a tom with her and the kids.  I have not seen that before.  they were in my back yard.

[Gutpile]

Saw a group of 8-10 the other day. Bet they're tender. 

[Gutpile]

Saw about 6 yeasterday. They were about the size of a hen pheasant.

[bearpaw]

For two years we've had bad winters and bad hatches in the Colville area. Bird numbers were at 30%-35% of 2003-2006 numbers at the end of winter this spring. Of about 12 properties that we hunt all but one wintered about 1/3 the normal number of birds. Properties where we usually wintered 250 to 350 birds all had less than 100 birds.

I have been waiting before I committed myself to a statement concerning the hatch that I wasn't sure about. The chicks are big enough that hens are bringing them out of heavy cover now. It appears about 50% of hens have 4 to 8 chicks per hen, and about 50% have no chicks. This is about 3 times as good as the hatch has been the last two years. Good enough that if the winter is reasonable we will see more birds next spring.

[bowhunterforever]

I just saw 4 hens and they had 23 chicks with them.