I used to think it was the other way around as a turkey will ansolutely destroy a grouse nest and anything in it. Thrkeys are opportunistic feeders and if something (like grouse chicks or eggs) doesn’t fit in their mouth they will tear it and rip it and shred it until they can swallow it… but maybe the grouse are meting out revengeful punishment.

Sitting in my blind calling for thrkeys I distinctly heard 6 individual grouse drumming within a few hundemred yards of me… and that’s a very good thing.





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I love them also. If I could find and afford a 3.5" 10 gauge Parker I would use it. I got tired of using 12 gauge 2 3/4" guns and afraid to shoot for fear of losing a bird, so I would not shoot. It takes a lot to get these birds in close. Not like on TV where they come running in. Coyotes, pre-season callers fooling with them, and hunting competition make it difficult enough.

I use a short ten with hand loads and black powder loaded into brass cartridges. Either are big medicine for very long kill shots.

I've killed turkeys with a 32" DH 12 2 3/4," a NH 10 shooting 1 1/2 ounce of 6s, a Grade 2 top lever 10 gauge, and a PH 12. Just like to get my tags done and sleep late at seventy years old. I can't chase a crippled bird anymore.:)

I hear that. I’m a believer in use enough gun

Ok guys, grouse or Moose do not eat turkeys. Nor do turkeys eat grouse, LOL !!Predators such as bobcats or coyotes do not material effect turkey populations. Birds this spring are down because of recruitment of poults last spring. Very wet and cold and a lot of poult die off. They will be back next year if we do not have a cold wet spring and early summer. Our NH turkey kill will be weighted to mature birds due to this.

A bad hatch last spring wouldn't have reduced the population of Toms and mature hens this Spring. It takes two years or more for a male poult to become a mature Tom.

Pete, you misunderstood the point. The reduced recement of poults in last springs young would reflect in this years total jake population. So this years kill figures will be weighted with older birds and not so many jakes. Pretty simple to understand.

I understand that, but what people have been reporting is an overall lack of birds, not just sightings but birds responding with a gobble from the roost in the early morning. I think the population is down and most likely multiple factors are to blame.

Armchair biologists. I have killed 5 birds in 5 hunts. Nothing wrong with the population of birds in my area. Folks that do not know how to hunt will blame anything but themselves for failure. I do predict a slight reduction in the total turkey kill, with more mature toms in the population of the kill. Take a good spring and all will be good next year.