- Joined
- Jan 3, 2022
- Messages
- 4,286
They are out there; they just are not gobbling. I'm finding tracks in certain areas. I'm just not hearing any gobbles yet.Par for the course in my neck of PA. Birds are extirpated from the region. Most depressing thing I've ever seen
Last year it seemed that they started to fire up about the end of April, just as the season was drawing to a close. The year before, I killed a great gobbler in a spot on April 27th that had been hammered by guys all April. The spot was close to the road, and I had seen several trucks parked there every dang day I went through. When I got that gobbler he was actually one that side hilled me while I was calling to another. I believe that bird is still there and I plan to be back after him in a week or so, but I expect him to be mostly silent. I believe he roosts at either end of a big valley and depending on which end he starts out on will end up at the other end the next day. I've been close to him several times last year but he is a tough, pressured public land bird.
I may be completely wrong on this, but I sort of think the bird populations have returned to a more normal level in the last few years after a period of artificial inflation. I think we just got used to having a huge population of vocal birds and we thought that was normal. Hearing birds every time we went out and killing a limit every season was what a lot of us got used too. Maybe that wasn't sustainable. I've talked to old timers and they sort of agree on that. Things were like they are now before. Like I say, maybe I'm wrong on that.