First and foremost, our season begins after peak gobbling is over. Having said that, there are years when the gobbling is really good and year when the woods are nearly silent.

Weather plays a role, specifically barometric pressure. When the pressure falls below 29.95 or so, gobbling pretty much shuts off. Studies have shown that turkeys do the most gobbling on high pressure, bluebird mornings. So if you have a spring that sees one low pressure system after another sweeping though, gobbling will likely be down.

I agree with too many hens in some areas. Gobblers have little reason to gobble when they are surrounded by hens every night. He’ll just sit in the tree until the ladies fly down under him and then pitch out to strut for them. I just saw 2 longbeards the other day at 2:00 in the afternoon and they had 6 hens with them.

I used to think that predators may suppress gobbling but I’m not so sure. Despite high numbers of coyotes and bobcats and such, on the right day, they will gobble their heads off with little worry about being located by predators.

So, in conclusion, timing of the season, weather (barometric pressure), and skewed gobbler/hen ratios are the main factors for less gobbling.

 

"Weather plays a role, specifically barometric pressure. When the pressure rises below 29.95 or so, gobbling pretty much shuts off. Studies have shown that turkeys do the most gobbling on high pressure, bluebird mornings."

I'm guessing you mean When the pressure Falls below 29.95
There's no doubt turkeys gobble better on blue bird mornings but are you sure about the 29.95 barometric pressure as the cutoff point?

 

Yes, I meant falls below and corrected it.

It’s by no means a guarantee but studies have observations seem to show that anywhere around 29.95 and above seems to result in much more gobbling than anything below it. Every turkey is different and every situation is different but the rule of thumb pretty much is that in order to have that perfect morning of birds gobbling up and down the ridges and through the hollows, that pressure needs to be around or above 29.95.

 

Option 3 is lack of turkeys. More gobblers would mean potentially more competion for hens. I’m seeing a fair amount of hens but very few gobblers.

 

Low populations of turkeys to start with. Very few 2 year old birds and I didn't see a single jake all season. I assume this is due to bad spring conditions. At this point it's going to take a few good years to bounce back.

Habitat to a degree. In general the habitat is pretty decent. But I hunt all big woods public land and a huge factor for deer, bear and turkeys last year was the acorn failure. I didn't find any acorns to speak of last fall. All through winter that kept more animals down in the valleys where the agriculture is.

Honestly I think predator numbers are down in my area. There were far more coyotes 10 years ago. A few cats around and decent amount of fishers. Some coons and stuff but I don't buy into the nest raiders being a huge factor. I spend a lot of time in the woods, a ton of time in the fall/winter, and just don't see the predator kill sites to back this up being a significant factor.

I also think the hen-gobbler ratio is way messed up. Second spring tag, almost no fall harvest of hens. All the gobblers are henned up with multiple hens. I don't see or hear any of those satellite birds running around. I hear more hens squawking at each other than I hear gobbles most days.

 

We'll take all the hens you want to get rid of over here in the eastern part of the state. Not much gobbling here because there's not many turkeys. Not sure what's happening to them but they been going down for 10 years. The last few years they've gone down hard.

 

Our cabin is up in lycoming county. Did take a nice one first morning, but after that we heard very few gobbling. Maybe one or two gobbles at first light, when they are still on the roost. I have a few trail cameras out and there are definitely gobblers around, however they are usually with 1 or 2 hens. Surprisingly, there is a flock with 4 or 5 Jakes hanging around our valley but you never hear them gobbling. Birds are heading to clover plots in the morning, and seem to hang around the plots most of the mornings.

 

Low numbers, and every time they do gobble something tries to eat them. Also genetics, some gobble more than others, and they are the ones that are more likely to get killed by a predator, that comes to a noisy bird.

 

The last 4 years things have really seemed to start sliding downhill for me. Went from filling both tags to filling 1 tag since 2017. I can't remember how much I hunted in 2017. I know in 2018 and 2019 I spent nearly 50 mornings in the woods and varied tactics. A lot of days I was making several mile loops and hunting the entire morning searching for a bird. This year I spent around 15 days out.


Population is definitely WAY down...and I cover a lot of territory.

I'm somewhat convinced that there is something going on..like disease. I have nothing to back that up...but the turkey population, especially in Western PA where I've been stomping me entire life, is down significantly. Cold/wet springs, predators, pressure, etc don't help...but the turkey population thrived though all those factors for a long time.

I do agree...my predator sightings are definitely up. I never had encounters till the last couple years. 2 Fisher and a coyote have charged my setups the last 3 years.


There aren't loads of hens here. There aren't loads of turkeys.


Used to be able to drive around pretty much every morning and there were strutters in pretty much every field. You could stand on a good ridge and hear more gobblers than you could actually count. I remember even the crappy weather days we'd still hear gobbling.

Now, it's thrilling to just hear a gobble lol.


Hopefully things turn back around. I lost interest this season quick. Then through a chain of bad luck events, I got onto a vocal bird. That lasted a few hunts and he has since disappeared and interest has died again. I hunt on my days off but no reason to drag myself out there on work days.

 

The gobbler population is definately down statewide. Spring Gobbler season is very popular and it only takes a bird to gobble and there are many hunters after him. In the early eighties hunter numbers were not as they are today as I remember. The guys that did hunt them were loners and kept a low profile. They learned from the old timers being the ones who hunted in the 60's and 70's. Today there are so many people out hunting that its hard to find a spot somewhere that there isn't a vehicle already there or has checked the spot before you.

Today the hunters are more advanced and it only takes a person to watch a few youtube videoes on calling and setup techniques and they have a decent chance at a gobbler. These hunters are killing them and when you roll in to hunt the area and hear nothing there all morning chances are you are hunting a dead bird.

Today we are allowed a second tag and yes I buy it and use it but I am now thinking we should back off on it for a few seasons. I know some will say the second tag doesn't hurt but the way I see it if I and the number other hunters kill that second bird those are missing from next breeding season to gobble for us to hear.

I don't see any changes from the PA Game Comm. on the second tag as they take in a good bit of money from it

 

I won't argue that the number of turkeys is down but I will dispute that it's due to predation or an over harvest.Killing gobblers after the hens nest has no impact on the overall turkey population.Pa has 46055 sq miles of land and the second spring tag results in an additional harvest of about 4800 gobblers.That's an increased harvest rate of about 1 extra bird per 10 miles.That's insignificant.Some years they gobble more than others.I never saw a hunter or a vehicle parked in any of the places I hunt,yet this was one of the quietest years I've ever had.The only real good day we had was the first day.I haven't heard a bird in over two weeks and that's covering a lot of ground with fresh sign.

 

I agree the population is down!!! In my area in the 80’s 90’s even early 00’s it was nothing to see a couple flocks in a day that were 40-60-80 plus birds. Now you never see that. Way way less fall turkey hunters now then in those days!!! So it’s not that they are over hunted by hunters. This coincides with a huge spike in predators during that time period. Especially the last 15-20 years. With that too I rarely here birds gobble in the evening this also happened during this time period.
Now you combine a few bad springs With the predators picking off more of the young then they use too. It will take much more time for the population to come back around! If it can at all.
I agree especially this year way more spring hunting pressure then ever! This too will shut birds up faster then normal even if they aren’t killing them.
I say less protection on predators and such, a bit better habitat management then we have. Will help. I don’t think that the second gobbler tag has that big of impact on the population. Way to many predators does!!!

 

I’m not going to totally discount predators having an effect on gobbling but IMO I really don’t think it is a really big factor. Lots of other states have the predators we do and they seem to have hard gobbling birds every year. Ask anyone who travels to other states and they’ll tell you that the birds there seem to hammer just the same as always.

Where the big issue is with declines in turkey populations and lack of gobbling seems to be in the northeastern states. It just so happens that those states experience the worse spring weather of anywhere in the country. Cold, wet, damp, snowy, freezing temps, etc. I GUARANTEE that hatches have been affected for multiple years in a row now. Add to that how low pressure and miserable weather generally shuts down gobbling and its not really surprising to hear it this quiet.

I’ll also add that, in my experience, large bands of jakes harass toms with regularity and suppress gobbling. I experienced that just a few years ago when I hunter a 3 year old longbeard that would not gobble and acted very insubordinate. I called him up one evening to 25 yards but he was on my right side and I couldn’t get the gun moved on him. He snuck in quiet to my decoy spread of 1 jake and a feeder hen but stayed back away from them for a couple minutes, just looking. Suddenly he turned and flew up to roost right behind me. I heard something coming from the opposite direction the the went and suddenly there were 9 jakes that came storming in. They gobbled at the jake decoy, bumped it whacked it, pushed each other around for a bit before moving on down the ridge and roosting for the night. I waited till it was really dark out to sneak out of there and came back the next morning and set up on the opposite side of the tom from where the jakes were roosted. The jakes started choking on their gobbles at daybreak but the tom never made a peep. They finally hit the ground and started moving off in the other direction and then I started calling. This time I was smart enough to not put the jake deke out and just the hen. After my second call sequence I heard him drumming and wingtips dragging on the leaves. There he was at 20 yards, behind some sparse mountain laurel. When he hit a gap, I pulled the trigger. No doubt in my kind that those jakes had been harassing him for awhile and he was not about to gobble and have them come looking to whoop him again.

One other factor I seem to be witnessing, this year at least, is that there’s seems to be a gap in the age structure of gobblers. I’ve seen PILES of jakes (13 in one field last week) and the majority of gobblers that have been harvested around here have been at least 3. There just doesn’t seem to be many loudmouth 2 year olds around this season and so you have the jakes that mainly yelp and cluck and you have the older birds they have played this game before and know they they don’t need to scream their heads off looking for love. These are the birds that sit in the tree in the morning and wait for the hens to fly done under thin before pitching out of the tree to join them and strut. You’re LUCKY if you hear him gobble 1 or 2 times.

I just don’t think they predators or hunting pressure are big factors in lack of gobbling because we have had plenty of predators around this area for quite some time now and some years the turkeys blow up the woods with gobbling and others they just don’t talk. And besides that, contrary to popular belief, turkeys are DUMB. They can be shot at one day and be called right back in the next. I’m sure they it a coyote or fox rushes them one day, they’ve forgotten about it by the next...

 

Wish I had more of those “dumb” turkeys in my area that you could miss one day and call in the next 😉

 

My thoughts are the lack of gobbling is mainly due to a clear lack of Jake's and 2 year olds on the landscape. Who doesn't love a hard gobbling 2 year old that comes in screaming his head off, letting every other tom know where he is. The lack of younger birds reduced competition for those remaining. I got to thinking this morning on another silent morning and realized how I've been hunting what I believe to be some of the same groups of gobblers using the same ridges now for at least 3 seasons. So that makes these birds 4+ years old and they know all the games. You know they are there you just have to be there when they finally feel like talking, then you better hope you don't mess it up because it could be the end of the season before you hear them again. Sitting around blind calling to quiet woods isn't my idea of turkey hunting even though many are successful using those tactics.

 

Less birds equals less gobbling. I think it’s as simple as that. Why there are less turkey, hens and gobblers, is what we should be trying to figure out.

 

Ther ain't nun to hear bud...

 

I chuckle every time I hear someone mention "gobbler/hen ratio" out of wack..these aren't deer and there is a reason why the PGC is constantly adjusting the FALL season....they are NOT adjusting to get the "ratio" in check..it's for the overall numbers...and blaming PA 2 gobbler tags is even funnier..



...back around 1990 when I started to hunt NY..and mid 90's when I added WV and MD..they ALL had 2 gobbler tags..and before someone says..but this is PA=the hunter numbers are greater blahblahblah.....never hunted these states because I saw more hunters out if state than in..AND..I hope ya'll are sitting down.... WV allowed RIFLES :tango_face_surprise


I've probably had every gobbler/hen situation happen to me over the 41 years in the turkey woods(my dad had me tag along in the late 70's)....thinking about it..I even have his first edition PA Turkey talk..and first PA NWTF patch.

..I love hearing them gobble as much as anyone and know just because I don't hear them doesn't mean they aren't there.

 

I chuckle every time I hear someone mention "gobbler/hen ratio" out of wack..these aren't deer and there is a reason why the PGC is constantly adjusting the FALL season....they are NOT adjusting to get the "ratio" in check..it's for the overall numbers...and blaming PA 2 gobbler tags is even funnier..



...back around 1990 when I started to hunt NY..and mid 90's when I added WV and MD..they ALL had 2 gobbler tags..and before someone says..but this is PA=the hunter numbers are greater blahblahblah.....never hunted these states because I saw more hunters out if state than in..AND..I hope ya'll are sitting down.... WV allowed RIFLES

I've probably had every gobbler/hen situation happen to me over the 41 years in the turkey woods(my dad had me tag along in the late 70's)....thinking about it..I even have his first edition PA Turkey talk..and first PA NWTF patch.

..I love hearing them gobble as much as anyone and know just because I don't hear them doesn't mean they aren't there.

I’m not talking about gobbler/hen ratios from a biological standpoint, I’m talking about it being a reason for lack of gobbling.

A gobbler gobbles to attract hens to him, correct? Well, if he already has a whole harem of hens surrounding him everyday, he has little reason to gobble. And if pretty much all the gobblers in your areas have at least a few hens with them that they can strut for all day, they have little reason to gobble.

Calling a turkey in goes against nature. The hen (you) are supposed to come to him and they is why he gobbles. But when competition for hens is fierce, he comes in to find you before any other gobblers can. And I don’t care if you are the best turkey caller in the world, if a gobbler has hens with him that he is strutting for, you’re not going to pull him away from them. Best you can do is try to tick off one of the hens and bring her to you with the gobbler in tow.

The same thing has happened in Colorado where we hunt every year. It’s a pretty rigged and remote area and very few people are willing to take a cow back in there. The result is a very skewed bull/cow ratio and a steep decline in bugling in September. Same as turkeys, there are so many cows around that literally every branch antlered bull can gather up a small harem of them and be content. There is little competition and thus little bugling because there aren’t multiple bulls jockeying for a limited number of cows.

The bottom line is that one of the reasons for a lack of gobbling could very well be because of gobblers being covered up with hens. They simply do not need to gobble when they have what they are looking for all around them.

 

In the area I hunt there are hens everywhere. I hunted ten mornings, there wasn’t a day I didn’t see at least three hens. Some days I’d encounter groups of them...anywhere from four to eight birds. Everyday, I would have hens answer me, and I can’t remember how many came in to the call.

Virtually no one, other than me, hunts turkeys in the fall in the area. There’s a good population of birds here, it is heavily weighted in hens rather than gobblers.

 

In my opinion the reasons we hear less gobbling is pretty simple.

1. Hunting pressure. Turkey aren't dumb and do not forget day to day encounters with hunters or predators. Of course there are stories of people shooting and missing a gobbler today and calling him in tomorrow. But that is the exception. I even experienced this once while hunting in Florida. I called in a gobbler for a buddy he missed it. It flew and shot out a few tail feathers as it was flying away from us. 1 or 2 days later he killed the same turkey which came in gobbling busted up tail feathers and all.

2. Hens, Hens, Hens, and more Hens. If they don't have to really look for "it" they aren't going to be very vocal. That was a my big problem this year. Tons of roost gobbling to say say here I am! The hens would walk under the gobbler they'd go crazy fly down and shut up.

3. Season comes in about a month too late.

 

I totally agree with points 2 and 3 but have to disagree with 1. I believe that hunting pressure that results in consistently booting birds out of their traditional roost sites can certainly have an effect, but if it’s just guys calling here or there or everywhere, I don’t believe they it bothers them that much. A bunch of guys constantly walking around the woods and calling can certainly drive turkeys off the property, public or private, but I don’t think that has an effect on gobbling.

I always heard guys complaining about people calling to birds before season or claiming they the birds are “call shy” from all the pressure, etc but I don’t buy that anymore. Turkeys are dumb but have great senses. They are easily fooled by foam decoys that never move. People routinely “reap” then by hiding behind a strutter decoy and waiting till they charge in to 3 feet away. They will jump on the back of a hard plastic decoy and take their spurs into it without figuring out that it isn’t real. Penned turkeys have attempted to breed the same hen decoy placed in their enclosure for days on end without figuring things out. Turkeys routinely will just stand there after a gun shot goes off and often proceed to attempt to whoop up on their dead buddy who’s flapping on the ground. They come running to some of the worst, nails on a chalkboard calling that you’ve ever heard...

I simply don’t believe in the idea of “call shy” birds and that hunting pressure has a major effect on GOBBLING. If he is in the mood on a particular day, he will gobble until his beak falls off and come running in to you mike a freight train...

 

This is all interesting info to me as I have run into this same problem in my area. I have been out 10 different mornings so far this season. I have been able to locate a bird on the roost on all but one morning. They will gobble maybe between 5 and 10 times on the roost, seems to be average around here, then once they hit the ground they usually go quiet. The latest I have heard a bird gobble is 8am, and I haven't randomly struck a bird yet. The only birds that have gobbled to a call have been ones that I have found on the roost. I know what I'm doing and am confident in my ability and set ups(5 of the 10 hunts I have had legitimate shot opportunities). I don't feel as though I am pushing the birds too much, or calling too much, I just kind of let things play out. But the thrill of spring turkey hunting for me is a hard gobbling bird coming into the call. With all of that said I feel as though the silence in my area is due to two major factors. First is hens, they have no reason to gobble too much if they are already with hens. Second is the weather as we rarely if ever have more than a day of any type of regular weather pattern. It pretty much rains here every other day and like I mentioned there just isn't any type of consistent weather pattern around here.

With all of that said I have two mornings left and I plan on giving it my best and hope to just get that one good morning that we all wait for!

 

They will gobble maybe between 5 and 10 times on the roost, seems to be average around here, then once they hit the ground they usually go quiet.

That's a gobblefest here in the east.

 

I don’t think it’s hunting pressure either.

When I was a kid in the 60s, there was an old timer in the Snow Shoe area who was friends with my Grandfather. The guy was full of stories. For decades, he killed countless turkeys hunting over shelled corn. He would wait them out, and shoot a couple when they showed. He or someone else would go back the next day and shoot some more. This might go on all week....they kept coming back to the bait with no concern over what had just happened to their family and friends in the days prior.

I was a skeptical six year old...and asked my Grandfather about the old timer’s story. He said those turkeys got a brain the size of his thumbnail, and don’t use any of it worried about what happened yesterday. They’ll keep coming back till there’s none left.


Fifty years of hunting them proves to me they have fantastic sense of vision and hearing, but they act instinctively. Memory and reasoning, not so much.

 

Way back when, turkeys around the farmland here were few and far between. If you wanted to find them, you had to go to the “big woods”. There were times when you couldn’t find a place to park at the top of the hill that the gamelands bordered up to. You could literally stand on the road and here at least a half dozen guys calling in every direction. And guess what, there were turkeys gobbling hard EVERYWHERE. It was kind of comical, and scary at the same time, because you would set up to work a bird, have him coming in only to have someone cut you off and shoot him. You’d just shrug your shoulders and walk a couple hundred yards down the ridge and strike up another one to work.

And this went on for days on end and the turkeys just kept gobbling and gobbling and gobbling...

As I said, turkeys are dumb. Amazing senses and instincts (most of the time) but they are dumb and easily fooled. There has been this lore created that in order to be successful at hunting turkeys, you have to be some sort of master woodsman and champion level caller and it’s simply not true. If a gobbler is in the mood, you can make any sort of God awful sound they even remotely resembles a yelp and they will come running. More often than not, the old wily bird that someone talks about that always knows how to “outsmart” them by going the other way is a simple case of having hens and following them. Many times hens will hear your calling and move the other way, taking the gobbler with them. He will gobble at your calls but he’s got the real deal in front of him and he’s not coming back.

 

One thing about lack of gobbling is it keeps the fair weather hunters out of the woods, or they're packed up and out by 8:00. Birds are still there for those that keep after them even if they are silent.

 

Amen to that.

 

i worked one over 5 days, but he just waked away gobbleing all the time, i set up on him waiting for him to gobble along his route. on day five he let out one weak gobble and i lit up up with my ben lee and he worked his way in over 30 minutes before i got a shot.

 

Excellent summary of my experience this year and in the recent past Bugle Boy. If I were to post something it would pretty much echo all the points you have already made. I though you were in my head for a second. I hunt in Susquehanna and Lackawanna Counties.

 

I'm seeing significantly reduced gobbling on private, unpressured land. I believe hunting pressure can in fact impact gobbling, but that's not the only factor we are dealing with here.