Turkey Season Summary - Arkansas Game and Fish Commission

2 0 0 6 - 0 7 T U R K E Y S U R V E Y S U M M A R I E SFigure 2. Arkansas gobbling and harvest by land ownership.43.532.521.510.50Gobblers/10 Hours Gobbles/Hour Kill/100 HoursPrivatePublicClub*In general,hunting clublands had slightlybetter gobblingand harvest rates.Figure 3. U.S. regional gobbling and harvest indices.9876543210All ARHuntersAvid ARHuntersSoutheast Great Plains Midwest WestMinor differences in gobbling activity andharvest indices were found according to landownership (Figure 2). In general, hunting clublands had slightly better gobbling and harvestrates. Gobblers heard per hunt, gobbles per huntand kill per hunt were almost identical betweenthe three land-ownership categories, but publiclandhunters tended to hunt about one hourlonger per hunt.Figure 3 indicates Arkansas gobbling andharvest rates were lower than other regions,particularly the Plains and Midwest. Gobblingactivity was two to three times better in Plainsand Midwest states, and harvest rates were muchhigher in Plains states.Arkansas gobbling and harvest indices canalso be compared to published data from similarsurveys in Mississippi and West Virginia. Thisis definitely an “apples to oranges” comparisonbecause Arkansas’s 2007 data will be comparedto data from earlier years in the other two states.Hunting on public land between the three statesGobblers/10 HoursGobbles/HourKill/100 Hourswas quite comparable in gobbling activity andharvest. However, hunting on private land inMississippi in 2004 would appear to be muchbetter than on Arkansas private land in 2007.We were also able to compare Arkansas’sharvest to data from several recent state statusreports from the Southeast Director’s WildTurkey Committee Annual Report. Arkansasharvest rates from this survey ranged from 2.23to 1.72 gobblers per 100 hours of hunting(Figure 2) on club and public land, or about oneturkey per 9.7 to 12.6 days of hunting, respectively.In Alabama, from 8-11 man-days andfrom 13-19 man-days were needed to harvest agobbler statewide and on WMAs, respectively,from 1995 through 2004. In Louisiana, 14“hunter efforts” were needed to harvest a gobbleron WMAs in 2006. In Virginia, 13.3 man-dayswere needed to harvest a gobbler statewide in2004. These data suggest that 2007 Arkansasharvest rates are better than those of many otherSoutheastern states.2 0 2 0 0 6 - 0 7 T U R K E Y S E A S O N S U M M A R Y