Best Turkey Hunting states??

[archer36]

It's all about your location. Guys in our club hunt our PA land and get skunked. If you have the right spot, you really have to be incompetent NOT to get a turkey. My NJ spot has it's good years and bad years. It all depends on the conditions. This year the D period I hunted was very densely covered. Fields had two feet of weeds or 3 feet of hay. Woods were very thick also where turkeys were roosting so you couldn't see what direction they went on fly down. 

Edited May 29, 2018 by archer36

[Stan Putz]

You may want to start looking around a little locally before you write NJ off, depending on where you go, it has some of the best turkey hunting in the NE, and numbers in PA & NY are way down, at least according to state biologists. 

I've hunted quite a few states over the years, both spring & fall. The trend I've seen is that when turkeys come into an area, the population explodes, and hunting gets rated as great. Then, once populations even out, guys start talking extinction already.   When I look for an out-of-state trip,  I lean toward states that have at least a 2-bird limit, have all-day hunting, and  an earlier start than NJ.  A few states that have growing populations right now are Maine, North Carolina and Wisconsin. It really isn't the state you hunt in that determines success, as much as getting on the right properties.

[chenrossi]

22 hours ago, Bucksnbows said:

But when you do the math, NJ has 1,745 square miles of public lands using the higher 20% and Nebraska has 2,321 square miles at only 3%.  Now take populations and you have 9 million NJ (legal) residents and in Nebraska that number is only 1.92 million.  I'll take Nebraska's measly 3% public lands all day over NJ's 20%.....  

State population doesn't have much relevance here...Paid license holders and users of those public areas are what are relevant. When you look at the number of paid license holders between the two states (175K in Nebraska, 75K in NJ), Nebraska whomps us. No secret about that. Our state turkey population is equivalent to their spring harvest (roughly speaking). Their harvest success rate is incredibly high compared to here in NJ (in some years >65%, ours is maybe in the mid-20s). No secret there either. But NJ has more public land opened to hunt (over 750K acres now as I recall, that's not even counting township, municipality, etc land) and Nebraska doesn't even top 700K. The bottom line is NJ has more land comparably that is open to hunting and that's a fact. It certainly doesn't seem like it as we are one of the most densely populated states, I get that...but perception is not always reality. 

Heck everyone loves Iowa for big deer. They have less public land in Iowa (IOWA, less public land for hunting than NJ) to hunt than here in NJ. And three times as many hunters! Wanna go hunt their 400K acres with 200K more of your closest buddies?

[archer36]

I have also noticed that when there is an abundance of predators (foxes mostly), the turkey population suffers. When fox numbers are low, the turkey population increases dramatically. 

[Bucksnbows]

1 hour ago, chenrossi said:

Heck everyone loves Iowa for big deer. They have less public land in Iowa (IOWA, less public land for hunting than NJ) to hunt than here in NJ. And three times as many hunters! Wanna go hunt their 400K acres with 200K more of your closest buddies?

In a word, yes.  But that comes from experience.  I lived and worked in the midwest in the late 80s and early 90s and did all of my wild pheasant hunting in Iowa on public lands.  If memory serves, non-residents couldn't hunt deer yet back then, so all I can talk about is wild pheasants and some quail.  It was the polar opposite of NJ and our public lands with stocked pheasants.  All Iowa locals know 4 or 5 farmers that will give them permission to hunt, so they never even think of public lands out there or didn't when i lived and hunted there.  If I saw another hunter a half mile away on a public parcel, that was a lot and we headed in different directions.  In NJ, we routinely watch groups of hunters walk past each other running dogs in the same fields.  You would never see that in Iowa.  Never.  

[mazzgolf]

1 hour ago, Bucksnbows said:

All Iowa locals know 4 or 5 farmers that will give them permission to hunt

And there lies the problem with private land in NJ - access (or lack thereof).

[mikejd]

Tennessee  is a good state.  You have to do your homework in PA and NY as numbers are way down.

Right now I only turkey hunt NY just came back from 10 days as I do every May.4 of us hunting hard everyday we only heard a few gobbles the whole trip. And we are covering thousands of acres of land with almost no pressure. The hunt ends at noon in NY so we spend most afternoons driving and looking  for birds and we saw very few. The numbers have been falling off for a while now.

[Stan Putz]

12 hours ago, mazzgolf said:

And there lies the problem with private land in NJ - access (or lack thereof).

I've done the DIY thing out west, and a little in the south.

Here is what I found:

Having a Yankee accent pretty much ends the conversation in Dixie. Plus, there are a LOT of turkey hunters south of the Mason Dixon, they all want to get on private land also.

In the Midwest & West, it is possible to get permission to hunt by banging on doors. BUT....

1). How do you know if the farm or ranch holds birds (you have to spend a lot of time scouting with your vehicle). Most times, if you set aside 3 days to hunt, this is going to cut into the majority of your hunting time. Turkeys are not like deer, they are not on every farm or woodlot.

2). Finding the landowner can take hours. Most of the time they're not sitting by the front door waiting for you to come knocking

3). Most farm roads are not paved or gravel, and it rains a lot in the spring. There is a good chance AAA is not coming for you if you get stuck or wind up in the ditch, if you can get cell service at all. You might be able to talk a farmer with a tractor to come pull you out, after he gets done laughing at you for coming all the way from NJ to hunt turkeys, he's expecting $50-100 for his time & effort (don't ask me how I know this )

If you have connections somewhere, that is a HUGE plus. I've done best by compromising, either finding an outfitter that allows DIY hunting on private land for a reduced fee, or finding a farmer or rancher on Craigslist, the WWW, or word-of-mouth that will allow you to hunt for a trespass fee. Plus, they are usually pretty accurate about turkey movement and roost sites.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Stan Putz