My grandfather got his first breech-loader shotgun in 1911 by guiding turkey hunters in the fall and winter in north Texas County on his father’s land bordering a northern section of the Big Piney River. He did so by scattering corn to feed them, then scaring turkeys off the roost during the night and waiting for them to come back to the bait and the roost the next morning at first light.
He saw big flocks of wild turkeys during his youth but he told me he saw wild turkeys decline in the late twenties and thirties to near extinction in the Ozarks because of three reasons. First and foremost, diseases brought in by farm families in tame turkeys, primarily something called blackhead disease. Secondly were the free-ranging hogs, which decimated acorn crops before the years end making that food source unobtainable during the cold snowy months. But the biggest decline wasn’t due to the predators that like to eat wild turkeys and destroy eggs, nor was it due to habitat loss. It was due to hard times and the coming depression.
“Country folks were hungry,” he told me. “Gettin’ enough for them big families to eat was hard and turkeys was danged easy to kill, so they got kilt and et more than anything else. In the depression time if’n you had a hog or cow you was rich! Those who had chickens got ‘em stole or et by hoot owls!”
“I was a trapper and hunter and fisherman from the time I was a boy,” he said. “You could eat fried muskrats and boiled possum, even a beaver er a bobcat. Wa’n’t no coons to be had after awhile but ever farm boy knew where turkeys roosted. So they got cleaned out. I use ta take a turkey er two up to Houston and sell one for a dime or a quarter. By1930 you couldn’t find one. Nor a deer neither.”
As I tape-recorded his recollections back in 1966, I understood how those problems eliminated the wild turkey a hundred years ago. Today, much the same things are coming about. There are too many predators, but men are the number one predator and there are more now than ever. Gobblers are too easy to kill.
Like my grandfather, I guided turkey hunters in the 1970’s and 1980’s in Arkansas and Missouri, and one spring, even in Kansas. I worked at calling turkey gobblers for men who were well off, doctors, surgeons and dentists who could afford to pay a lot of money for the experience the hunt provided. None were interested in just killing a gobbler. Often a friend and I would set up a camp in the National Forest or on a river in the Ozarks. There were so many wild turkeys back in those times that anyone who could hunt three days had a very good chance to get a gobbler. Most mornings at daylight we could hear 3 or 4 gobblers if not more. We almost never failed.
There were some years I spent more time trying to get a client a gobbler than I spent hunting by myself. In the years I guided hunters, nearly thirty-five clients killed more than sixty turkeys, which I called in. And that was the key to it… they didn’t want to ambush one, or kill one off the roost or even use a decoy. It was old time turkey hunting at it’s very best.
Most of today’s young hunters don’t seem to care about that. There are things today that were not thought of then. Decoy’s, calls on smart phones, permanent blinds, and baiting are only a part of it. I’ll talk about some of that next week.
I learned a lot of what I know about wild turkeys thru my grandfather and then turkey biologists working for the Missouri Conservation Commission back in the 1960’s. The Missouri Department of Conservation didn’t exist then and we’d be better off if it didn’t exist now in my opinion. I believe it is a corrupt agency with millions of dollars and agents who regularly break the law with no consequences, and no desire to bring back turkey numbers if it hurts revenue.
The ‘Department of Conservation’, established in 1982 after the1/8 cent conservation tax passed and money became plentiful for them, DID NOT EVER STOCK WILD TURKEY OR DEER. The “Conservation Commission” did that back in the 50’s and 60’s. The latter agency we refer to today as the MDC, stocked some grouse and prairie chicken that have gone nowhere and the otter, which we watch decimate our streams and private ponds today.
Wild turkeys now are at the lowest number I can remember since the 1960’s and in next weeks column I will tell you why and how landowners can bring them back. In the meantime, you can read another story or two about wild turkey and some photos I have taken of them, on my website, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.
I will mention again that I have finally gotten my spring magazine printed and mailed. If you are a subscriber you should get yours this week. If you aren’t a subscriber, get to be one by calling our office, 417-777-5227.
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