How we got our turkeys back, and maybe you can too.

Turkey populations are exploding again at Prairie King Ranch after many wet springs in a row and a predator problem that got WAY out of hand. Three dry springs in a row now and an aggressive 7 year predator reduction program and our ranches are looking like about 2004 again!

Many states have experienced rapid turkey population declines since they peaked in about 2010, reaching critically low levels in many areas by about 2018-19. Our part of Nebraska became known as the world’s turkey mecca partly through our efforts over nearly 4 decades, even so and although we constantly manage our turkey populations, we were not completely insulated from this downturn. It was the longest stretch of wet I’ve seen and the nest robbers definitely took me by surprise. When your livelihood depends on providing quality turkey hunting opportunities for hunters coming from around the country and even around the world, and you’ve been responsible for more turkey harvests than anyone else on the planet, you have to stay on top of your population dynamics. If there is something you can do to help it, you need to-immediately. After consulting biologists, we learned that there was no conclusive evidence for why the turkeys were in decline, but they were initiating a 5 year study to determine causation. Habitat loss was the most likely issue, according to state biologists. In our part of the state, however that was not the case. In 36 years, `3600 turkey harvests (up to 316 per year), over 50 ranches, 100,000 acres in 5 counties, our boots on the ground experience in turkey management is unparalleled. I’m not a biologist, but I can tell you that most of the farms and ranches in our area are farmed and ranched by the same people as when I first started in 1991. They are growing the same crops in the same rotations. They haven’t expanded or contracted. Its an economically forgotten area that simply hasn’t changed. No subdivisions. No development of any kind. I’m sure there are parts of Nebraska where habitat change is a problem for turkeys but ours is not one of those, except that invasive brush like eastern red-cedar could be a small factor as it relates to predation which I will cover later.

In our 36 years we have closely watched population increases and declines which we attribute 90% to nesting success including poult survival. That number would be lower if winter kill were an issue but on our ranches, that is a minimal problem since we supplemental feed. We have found that providing turkeys with feed near a roost and water, so that they do not have to travel long distances during inclement winters, your young bird survival is through the roof. We find that in wet years, the nesting success is low, in dry years, the birds reproduce very well in our area. Spring hunting is not a factor in our turkey populations. We only shoot mature toms. Fall hunting, however, I don’t allow on our properties in times of low populations because I don’t want hens shot. That’s like playing russian roullette with your flock. If you take out 10 mature hens on say two ranches, you could well be reducing the winter success of its young and up to 50 chicks lost the following spring. You can easily get away with that in high population periods, but when bad winters or wet springs combine with record predator numbers, its not prudent. For the life of me I don’t understand why states don’t instantly eliminate fall hunting seasons in down population trends instead of waging war on non resident hunters by limiting their permit purchases in the spring to harvest mostly mature toms. It truly is baffling. At least limit the fall hunting to male turkeys only during down populations.

Our area had more good, wet years during the turkey decline period than at any other time in my 36 years managing for turkeys. I would attribute a large portion of the problem to that. That said, I cannot do anything about wet years, nor would I want to because we also farm our lands. The difference between a biologist and manager is that a biologist is going to study the problem, determine the cause and then initiate some solutions. A process that can take years. That’s great. It’s needed. And I love that our biologists spend their lives doing those things for us. A manager is more like a farmer. If his crop dies for no apparent reason, he doesn’t have time for a three year study to find out what happened to the corn plant and another 10 years after that to implement the fix in the hybrid variety vs soil type so that he doesn’t have that problem again. The farmer is going to go look at the field that he knows so well, look at his soil tests, see if there is a variable or two that he can control, and he is going to re-plant, maybe corn again, maybe beans, maybe another crop. He is going to use his best judgement over years of exact location, boots on the ground experience. He will have a crop. That’s what we did with our turkeys, and perhaps you can glean some information here that might help you with yours.

1) First of all, our population did not start from zero. That is because we do lots of things for our turkeys. We leave cattle free nesting cover, east facing, well drained slopes near winter roost areas. This guarantees a certain amount of nesting success each year pretty much no matter what.

2) Second, we provide supplemental feed during winter. If we get three feet of snow with wind, we want to be sure that our birds can hop out of the tree and have easy access to water and food. It’s a huge deal. Without this we think our population swings over the past 3.5 decades would have made it difficult if not impossible for us to provide the consistent success that we do. Through the years, our neighboring ranches have completely run out of turkeys multiple times. We never have, and our ranches are typically the “nurseries” to re-establish neighboring flocks. We hear it all the time on the streets. “I just don’t have the turkeys any more like I used to. Haven’t seen one all year”. We have seen swings but we have never seen our managed populations go to zero. In times of low predator numbers we put that feed in areas protected from the elements and snow drifting. But in times of high predator numbers, we are forced to move those to the open so that predators cannot hunt the birds successfully while feeding.

3) Roosts are sacred and require maintenance: We don’t allow any activities around our roost trees that could cause the birds to vacate. If they vacate to a neighboring ranch which is not managing they will have mortality similar to the rest of the unmanaged populations in the state. They will loose the umbrella of care that we provide. The roost has to remain viable for the flock. This means clear, brush free areas for fly up and fly down with at least two options for each so they can manage high winds and known predators. Small trees and brush obscuring the fly down area may need to be cleared so that the birds don’t vacate.

4) Predator control: For us as managers, not biologists, we have to do some very simple math to solve problems quickly before more damage is done and without causing some other irreversible damage. According to our estimates, our raccoon population grew by well over 1000% in our area since 1990, peaking in 2018 ish. Lets just say that in the 1980’s I could run a trap line of 50 traps for a week during running weather and catch 3-5 per week. At $35 each, I was making bank as a kid. Today 50 traps yields me well over 100 raccoons per week (which are worthless) for the first couple weeks of the season. Of course that number will go down dramatically each week during excessive populations, as I remove them, where the 5 per week would remain steady through the season. That said, it wouldn’t get below 30 even late in the season. On one of our ranches we consistently counted 25 to 35 raccoons in a single harvested 160 acre cornfield in November. One thing that I do not see being written about often enough by biologists these days, is predator control. There seems to be a pervasive trend to try to manage prey species without reducing predators. Some even view the idea of predator management as outdated or barbaric. It certainly is not. Explain to me how removing an excess population of predators that are inflicting barbaric harm to an under populated prey species is barbaric. If, for example, your predator population is up by over 1000%, or for arguments sake just even, but the prey species has dropped to 50%, your ecosystem is out of predator/prey balance. No matter what you do to habitat, it will not have any meaningful or lasting effect. The predator must be reduced to give the prey a chance to come back. Biologists today may not be able to condone this, but that’s exactly what we do. Thats what we did. It works. If you have a nest robber problem, these practices will help your turkey problem immensely and you will see major improvement in two years. We increased 100% first year and again in the second. Currently up 600% after 6 years. Here is how we did it:

Make it harder for the predators to succeed in hunting your turkeys:

1: It will take a while to trim back excess predator populations. In the mean time, quickly make it harder for the predators. If you supplemental feed, move your feed into the wide open so that predators cannot lie in ambush. We put ours in the open, but preferably where there is still reasonable protection from extreme winter weather, such as in small open fields in a creek bottom or behind a good windbreak where there is say 100 yards of open space in all directions for a turkey to run and take flight if a coyote or other predator makes a run at them.

2: Look at your roosts from the eyes of a predator. If the birds only have one place to fly down, feed the birds somewhere else where they have more options when they sense a predator below. If you don’t feed, see if you can do some logging or brush management to give them another option at their preferred winter roosting site. Keep in mind that winter roosts attract predators because a tree full of turkeys is just too tempting.

3: Brush management. If your entire property is becoming choked with brush, you will notice your turkeys preferring to spend time on other properties. We watched a decades long 250 bird roost vacate to zero over the years as cedars and brush (partly our fault due to creating deer sanctuaries and excluding cattle) choked out fly down areas, staging areas and strut zones. A tree mulcher and a couple of days work fixes that problem. It also reminds us to look at our balance of turkey vs deer. In most cases, but not all, you are better off to separate your active turkey roosts and active turkey areas from your deer sanctuaries if you are not pasturing your sanctuaries.

Then kill the predators and nest robbers.

1) Give it your all. Don’t worry, you aren’t going to kill them all, regardless of what some emotional insta-grammer might say. Good management is logical, not emotional. If you have a problem, like we did, don’t hold back. I recommend doing 1, 2 and 3 above this weekend to give your birds a fighting chance from predators then bring in the artillery.

2) After doing 1, 2 and 3 above, go after the predators, coyote, fox, bobcat. Likely you have some critters that have become adept at hunting and killing your turkeys regularly. Get them gone. I recommend calling (we use thermals because it takes less time away from farm chores). You can trap them, just be careful with leg traps and snares where you have a lot of turkeys.

3) If you stop at #1 and #2, you will have accomplished about 10% of what you want to accomplish. Those two steps do not make a big difference. This third step makes all the difference. I give you #1 and #2 because if you have active predators at your roost, they can take adult birds, and you need every one of them to make eggs while you are going after the nest robbers prior to the upcoming nesting season. With the nest robbers, coons being our biggest problem, but skunks, foxes, possums, and others can be problems in other areas. I start at the supplemental food source with the dog-proof raccoon hand trap. Corn is bait for raccoons, so if you are feeding turkeys, you’ll have plenty of raccoons to eliminate right at these sites, quickly and easily. Now you are making progress on active predators and nest robbers who actually do the deeds on a regular basis. Consistently, and with the goal of greatly reducing nest robbers, I suggest thermal or night hunting calling tactics. You need them to be gone before your next nesting season. Hit your place hard and explain to neighbors what you are doing and ask for permission to call on their place too. Or, try to get them excited about doing the same thing themselves, because as you eliminate your nest robbers, you will be creating a vacuum, and your neighbors’ nest robbers will become yours when the first nesting season arrives, and you’ll feel like you accomplished nothing in the first year. Finally, be persistent. Don’t give up when someone tells you that nest robbers don’t make a difference. They do. It’s common sense. If your turkeys peaked in 2010, for example, and your nest robbers peaked at the same time. Then your turkeys crashed, and your nest robbers went unchecked, you end up with a dis-proportionate level of predators to prey. You can’t bring the prey back to balance but you can bring the predator number back to balance, which in turn fixes the problem, or at least buys you time to find out what other problems may be exacerbating the situation. Many emotional managers today (those two words are not meant to go together) will say it’s cruel to kill the predators. Killing predators to create a proper balance is the opposite of cruel. It’s the job of humans on the planet. Not killing predators when there is an out-of-balance situation is cruel. Imagine allowing a situation where 10 hens had to defend 10 nests from 100 raccoons. Cruel to both. Too much food competition amongst the raccoons, and an impossible situation for the poor hens. Trim the predators back to where they match up again with prey: they both benefit and can grow back in unison. Smart.

Antler Hunting After a Spring Blizzard

Shed hunting after a blizzard presents obvious hurdles, but it can still be done. In fact sometimes it can help concentrate your efforts in the right places.

Our annual antler hunting event at Prairie King Ranches was greeted with a two day spring blizzard. 8 inches of snow and 40 mph winds. But at the end, we were optimistic that this could well be shaping up to be one of those falls that we talk about for years. We found only 1 dead head, where our average is 10, and the average size of the naturally shed antlers was in the top three of our 34 year history.

The one dead head for the week was a dandy heavy horned old buck grossing 160. And my son Cort is carrying a couple of sheds from two different likely 4 year old bucks which we will be looking for in September!

Expert level: When you go out and find two nice lefts buried in the snow!

Resilient Genetics: Having hunted the same location in Nebraska for 40 years now, I’m amazed the common genetics that keep showing up in the herd. The two antlers on the right were picked up by my son Cort this week. The one on the left was from a matched set that sits on my mantle which Cort’s Grandfather and Great Grandfather found together in spring 1986. A buck that just so happens, I missed in the fall of ‘85. We will be looking for both of the bucks on the right this fall!

If you think about it, a blizzard with wind replicates in one day what the entire winter did to the landscape. It fills in some treed areas with snow, forcing deer to not bed there. Other bedding areas that are clear of snow were clear also in the winter and were the likely spots for bedding winter deer during the shedding season. Similarly food plot areas that are blown free of snow in a spring blizzard were likely the spots blown free during winter, thus concentrating the deer. So, many times a spring blizzard can set up a scenario where your efforts are concentrated right where they need to be to find the most antlers with the least amount of hiking.

Toward the end of the week, the sun had come out, melted off much of the landscape, and we had recorded one of our best trips ever.

2020, The Best Year Ever

For most of the world, 2020 has been anything but the best no matter how you look at it.  But, for an archery deer hunter looking to travel to Northern Nebraska, it might well be the best year in history.  That’s right, I said in history, here’s why:

As far as I know, I was the lone ranger starting an archery only Whitetail deer hunting outfit in Northern Nebraska back in 1991.  Back then the only ones that had quality deer were those who put the time, money, effort and patience into making it so.  Certainly the years that followed have been the best archery hunting opportunities ever to exist in my part of Nebraska.  That said, like any area there is a difference between the best years and the worst years. 

As an outfitter you work hard to minimize the differences, and we have.  But weather is that one wildcard that you cannot control.  I’ve always said that the difference in antler growth between a really wet year and a terribly dry year is about 10%.  Given this estimate, that 150 inch buck you were hoping to hunt may have turned into a 135 through the grueling spring/summer drought.  That said, some bucks will hole up in a spot where they still have everything they need.  In one of our driest years ever one of our bowhunters took a 175” buck that was as healthy and fat as ever.  By no means do I think he would have been a 200” buck if the year had been better.  He just had a nice, low stress place to live during the antler growing season, and plenty of food and mineral, which we helped with!

There is another factor though that is not often considered:  How many dry or wet years have there been in the area in a row?  The reason why I say this year may be the best ever is because we have not had so many incredible wet years in a row since QDMA came to our area.  Our last dry year was 2012.  It was a terrible drought across the middle of the state but it did also affect us up north, especially later in the summer and early fall.  Any deer born the year after that would be 8 now.  That’s probably 95% of our doe population and 100% of our buck population.  This means that these deer have not just had one great year followed by a bad one, then by an average one.  These deer have lived a life of luxury and gluttony for their entire lives!  They don’t know even what an average rain year is like.  They’ve never seen one!

Of course these weather trends are cyclical and they will pass.  I recently purchased an irrigated farm next to our farm in preparation for the drier years that will come again.  Having been in this for the long term, I did this to add acres, different crop hunting opportunities especially for early and late seasons, but also to be able to control a large amount of cropland to keep our deer fed during critical times without having to hope for a rain that doesn’t come.

With the best mix of food plots, alfalfa, corn and soybeans we’ve ever had plus 8 years of plenty, I’m convinced that this fall will be the best deer hunting we have ever guided in our nearly 30 years of outfitting.  If you are bowhunter looking to go on a bowhunting trip this fall, northern Nebraska is definitely an area you should consider.  If you want to hunt with us, season opens September 1.  Vertical or crossbow is legal and we do have a few spots left from September 1 to November 7.  We kill big deer every year, but years like this are what we live for-when the sky is the limit.

Prairie King Ranch, LLC
James Brion
406.369.0160
jamesbrion@icloud.com