Please kill all the Turkeys

[Bluemoon]

Have any of the Pheasant hunters here noticed where the Turkeys move in the Pheasant disappear.  Places I have hunted for years where you could move 100 Pheasant a day are now void of any but Turkeys everywhere.  One hunt last year out of Dayton I quit counting at 24 points on Turkeys.  We did not put up one Pheasant.   To bad it is not legal to hunt them with dogs in Washington like it is in Montana.   So please on behalf of my dogs kill them all.

[phishisgroovin]

please private message me directions and lokidog & I will go try.

[piledup]

Gps coordinates would be fine. 

[Bluemoon]

Think Whiskey Creek

[phishisgroovin]

great, now all the teanaway hunters will be in whiskey creek this weekend and us without cheveron fuel cards will be alone in teanaway. 

[BOWHUNTER45]

Well I call BS on this one ..yeah we have more turkeys than pheasants but There is no way your going to tell it is because of turkeys ... So your telling me the turkeys are taking over the cover of the pheasants or are they eating miles of wheat fields...

[lokidog]

please private message me directions and lokidog & I will go try.

    

[jackmaster]

i have wonderd the same thing when it came to grouse and pheasant on the west side except it isnt turkeys its the damn possums, grouse and pheasant nest on the ground, well along comes MR possum and yum yum no more eggs and a pissed of mama, i think the state needs to put a bounty on them like they do for sqauw fish. if i hunted turkeys i would definatly head over and kill a couple for ya

[Bluemoon]

I am not a biologist nor claim to be.  All I know is where I used to shoot a lot pheasants there were never any turkeys.  Now that the turkeys have moved into the area the pheasants are not there anymore.  Call BS all you want I just stating the facts of this area.

[Machias]

Northern Missouri and southern Iowa have huge populations of both birds living in the same habitat, you'll need to look elsewhere for the culprit or reason why your pheasant numbers are down.  I would suggest it was in part to one of the worst hatches ever for quail and pheasants last spring.

[steen]

Years ago there used to be pheasants in the Custer area also.  That was when people were small time beef ranchers and raised their own oats and grains.  There was plenty for the pheasants to eat.  Now all that is gone and so are the pheasants, except the few you see survive the release sights or fly out of the release sights into private land.  Here the yoties and opossums take care of alot of those too.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Not being an A hole but I have fought hard to get turkeys in Washington and i just want to say this is the trouble we have had for 25 yrs in Washington is on what they eat and how it will effect the grouse population and the best one being the bios of Washington were worried about them eating frogs and snails .. turkeys do eat about everything ...Now let me clue you guys in alittle ... We had two chapters for the NWTF here on the westside ..Started in the 90,s Mine being one of them we raised lots of dollars for turkey restoration here in Washington finally convinced Washington to release a few on the westside .. We turned loose around 56 birds on the Pilchuck tree farm , pilchuck sold out to another company and now its off limits to hunting .. after all this hard work we got slapped in the face and lost 1000 s of dollars we put into it .. so basically everyone but the hunters are benefiting from this . this is why I  and they everett chapter quit .. I thank everyone whoever put there time into making Washington what it has become today... our last meeting a couple years ago was in Acme Wa. up north and the public shut us down again on making more plants in this area due to what they call crop damage .. Berry farmers ect ...So just to make it clear I have been involved on these issues for 20 yrs now and i will gladly brag that one up !!! Another thing the state of Washington is making millions off the wild turkey so please do not kill them all ....Make it clear I am not hear to p--- O-- people just get some respect .... peace !!!!

[BOWHUNTER45]

Steen  your correct and on the eastside skunks and coons eat alot of pheasnt eggs plus the habitat is not as good as it used to be !!!!! NOTHEN TO DO WITH TURKEYS !!  it is just because the turkeys took good hold to the area because of food and dryer springs !!!

[Wacenturion]

Not being an A hole but I have fought hard to get turkeys in Washington and i just want to say this is the trouble we have had for 25 yrs in Washington is on what they eat and how it will effect the grouse population and the best one being the bios of Washington were worried about them eating frogs and snails .. turkeys do eat about everything ...Now let me clue you guys in alittle ... We had two chapters for the NWTF here on the westside ..Started in the 90,s Mine being one of them we raised lots of dollars for turkey restoration here in Washington finally convinced Washington to release a few on the westside .. We turned loose around 56 birds on the Pilchuck tree farm , pilchuck sold out to another company and now its off limits to hunting .. after all this hard work we got slapped in the face and lost 1000 s of dollars we put into it .. so basically everyone but the hunters are benefiting from this . this is why I  and they everett chapter quit .. I thank everyone whoever put there time into making Washington what it has become today... our last meeting a couple years ago was in Acme Wa. up north and the public shut us down again on making more plants in this area due to what they call crop damage .. Berry farmers ect ...So just to make it clear I have been involved on these issues for 20 yrs now and i will gladly brag that one up !!! Another thing the state of Washington is making millions off the wild turkey so please do not kill them all ....Make it clear I am not hear to p--- O-- people just get some respect .... peace !!!!

That's a bit of a stretch......you convinced WDFW to  release birds on the west side....or perhaps Pillchuck or both?  There were at least 4 chapters in western Washington in the 90's...and the Everett Chapter came after Olympia, which was the first chapter along with Castle Rock and Vancouver if I recall.

Not trying to be negative, but you sound like a typical NWTF promoter of all things turkey that happened in Washington.  Just the opposite, turkey releases by WDFW stimulated the chapter system...fact.  If NWTF was the force behind all the releases and turkeys we have today, then why did it just stop?  Did the NWTF decide we had enough birds or some other reason?  No they were in fact an obstacle at times with their middle man mentality....to over simplify, all the NWTF did was pick our pockets and take all the credit.

That's not to say that volunteers like yourself didn't work hard to be a part of the overall effort the last few years in the 90's before everything came to a halt.  Unfortunately those same volunteers also got used.

As far as the statement.......

"our last meeting a couple years ago was in Acme Wa. up north and the public shut us down again on making more plants in this area due to what they call crop damage .. Berry farmers ect ..."

It was ill conceived from the start.  First the idiots in WDFW let NWTF bio's from back east sell Rio's as the obvious choice since they did so well in Oregon and California....like Acme is so like Roseburg.  Those nitwit NWTF bio's said WDFW was premature in putting Easterns out in western Washington...a mistake.  Bull puckley...they don't have a clue.

Rio's travel in large flocks and go where the easy food is...toward I-5 and the small organic farms.  Would have happened.  Easterns on the other hand would have disappeared like they do in other areas of western Washington...Pillchuck, Capitol Forest, Rose Valley..on and on.  They would have gone the other direction....to the woods...timber and the fringes.  No damage....none.

Those farmers had every right to question it and WDFW and NWTF could not answer the potential damage question.  Easterns would have been an easy sell....supply phone numbers of landowners where they exist...landowner telling landowner that no damage occurring.....done deal.

Add on the rush by local chapter up there to get anything released....even if wrong for the area.  Also ill conceived.  I for one am glad it got dumped, as it would have given turkeys a bad rap, because of poor decision making on the wrong subspecies.  Now nothing will get released up there.  You can blame the NWTF bio's and the local chapter for that....no one else.


Not to jack the thread, but needed to clarify things.

Oh...and turkeys are not the problem with pheasants. 

[Turkeyman]

  Hit the nail on the head again Wacenturion.