# High Public Land Pressure! Time to Move on?



## grousedog (Oct 21, 2002)

I can say that the hunting in the northern half of area K has fallen off dramatically the last five years. The only birds remaining, with very few exceptions, are on private land where someone is feeding them. It isn't reasonable to expect the north woods to have turkeys like the southern half of the state, but I agree that something needs to change. I would much rather draw a tag every other year and shoot a bird than buy one every year and not even hear a gobble. Not unlike hunting trophy deer and wild pheasants, turkey hunting is going to become very much a private land affair with only rare opportunities to shoot one on public land. And then they will wonder why license sales dropped off a cliff.


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## MT2MI (Jun 4, 2016)

Agree with what others are experiencing and seeing. Youtube not helping IMO. Contact NWTF and also complete the MI DNR turkey survey to share your thoughts.


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## Chriss83 (Sep 18, 2021)

grousedog said:


> I can say that the hunting in the northern half of area K has fallen off dramatically the last five years. The only birds remaining, with very few exceptions, are on private land where someone is feeding them. It isn't reasonable to expect the north woods to have turkeys like the southern half of the state, but I agree that something needs to change. I would much rather draw a tag every other year and shoot a bird than buy one every year and not even hear a gobble. Not unlike hunting trophy deer and wild pheasants, turkey hunting is going to become very much a private land affair with only rare opportunities to shoot one on public land. And then they will wonder why license sales dropped off a cliff.


Bad part is it's doing same thing in southern MI. As well as many other states across the eastern US. I almost guarantee there were more hunters in yankee springs opening day than there were Tom's.


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## beer and nuts (Jan 2, 2001)

Low numbers for sure what Im seeing in Roscommon/Crawford co. DNR has to lighten the load on these turkeys. I actually think there are multiple factors of course, one being the stoppage of feeding/baiting deer, this helped the turkeys just prior to winter.


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