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turkey relocation?

Jethro

Jethro

New Member
i live in boone county north of big creek lake. i have deer hunted the timber around my house for two years now and have not seen or heard one single turkey. all the surrounding landownwers that i have talked to have never seen any turkeys either but agreed that we needed some. have you guys heard of or know of any type of wild turkey relocation or stocking program in iowa? or somebody i can contact to get information about this. thanks.
 
...I think Iowa still does some in-state relocations... Dale Garner is the Turkey Biologist for Iowa...sorry I do not have is phone #...I believe his office can be found at the Chariton Wildlife Unit Headquarters...I am shocked you do not have any turkeys...I have hunted to the north and south of you on the Des Moines River and have seen lots of turkeys...is your timber cut-off from the river?...is it a small timber?...
 
The DNR wildlife office at the Coralville Reservoir is where we used to take turkeys that we trapped 3 years ago, I don't think they did any turkey trapping the past couple years due to the budget crunching they've been shuffling around. I am pretty sure that if you want turkeys stocked into your area that you should have a wildlife biologist come to your ground and he'll look it over and see if the area would support the birds. It's similar to having a one come out and look your ground over for depradation tags and such. They'll scout around and write down as to how many they can stock. I know when I was with the DNR they did in-state stocking as well as shipping them to Washington state and trading wiht South Dakota for prarie chickens I believe. The biologist at Coralville is named Tim Thompson, he's a super nice guy, but I don't know the phone # off hand.
 
i am shocked that i don't have any turkeys also. the timber is not hooked to the river timber, but is timber that is on big creek which is the creek that feeds directly into big creek lake. the timber is not huge like you would find down in southern iowa, it is long and skinny. it varies anywhere from 100 yards wide to 1/2 mile wide and is around 3-4 miles long. it eventually runs into the north side of big creek state park. in between me and the park there are some spots that are pretty sparse but i wouldn't think that would matter. the basic make-up of the timber is the timber(some very thick), the creek, some crp, buffer strips and lots of rowcrop. maybe it's not a big enough piece of timber to sustain tukeys, but i figured with the way that they have adapted throughout the rest of the state that they could adapt here.
 
i have heard and seen quite a few coyotes on this stretch of timber. i have only seen one fox but i am sure there are more. i am working on thinning out the coyotes...
 
They don't need much timber, as long as they have a food sorce which I am sure they do. Here in Wisconsin there is a spot that I hust that has just little sections of wood lots on fairly flat ground. Highest point is maybe at the most a 100ft above the rest. The patches of woods are at the most 3-4 arces in size with the exception of two decent sized chunks shich are about 120 acres and the other is 80 acres. There are birds all over in there. Kind of hard to hunt being so wide open. I just set up in a couple spots 300-400 yards away in a couple trees and call to a couple of these real small lots and the birds come out of them running for the hens. Yep you guessed it. A PERSON CAN GET PRETTY EXCITED SEEING THESE CORN CRACKERS COME RUNNING FROM 300 YARDS AWAY! It is a blast.

Good hunting.
 
Skip Costa Rica. Go out this weekend at first light. You'll find out if you have any turkeys.
 
Jethro. There was a good population of turkeys on the south side of your place 5 years ago. But I noticed they have disappeared. Some of them have moved farther south because I still see them time to time. But you have to wonder what made the population drop.
 
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