The author poses with one of his two longbeards from this spring.

If you would have said we’d see the worst turkey harvest in 15 years, you would have been right, and many hunters would have expected it. This spring, with 26,854 birds, Kentucky produced the lowest turkey harvest total since 2007.

Michael Pendley, a Kentucky-based outdoor writer for Realtree, Petersen’s Hunting and others, as well as a co-host for SOKY’s Great Outdoors on 102.7 FM, said it was a subpar year. He rated the 2022 turkey season as a poor one.

“We, a family of five, hunted seven to eight farms in several counties in both central and western Kentucky,” Pendley said. “Sightings and gobbling were down in both areas.”

They bagged a total of seven turkeys, including five longbeards and two jakes.

“But we worked harder than usual for them,” he said. “Overall, I’d rank this season as one of my toughest in terms of mature birds worked to the call in the past 20-25 years.”

Pendley echoes a worrisome trend that many other turkey hunters are talking about – turkey numbers are declining throughout the state. This isn’t applicable to every property, or every flock, but statewide populations are decreasing.

“Several hunters I talked to were so frustrated and concerned with a lack of birds and gobbling that they only hunted a fraction of the season then put away their gear, saying they would rather not take a bird from their areas when numbers seemed to be down this much,” Pendley said.

Even in areas where populations are stable or increasing, he said the hunting just wasn’t as good.

“Even on the farms with stable turkey numbers, gobbling seemed to be down from previous years,” Pendley said.

Many of his contacts, and mine, experienced the same thing.

Looking to the future, he’s concerned with the direction Bluegrass State turkey populations are trending.

“I’m concerned, Pendley said. “Numbers, not just in Kentucky, but across the Southeast, continue to fall. What concerns me the most is that leading biologists can’t put their finger on exactly what is causing the decline. Most tend to think it’s a combination of factors that all add up to lower numbers. I do know we need to get poult recruitment higher, and that is probably my main goal on the properties I manage or help to manage.

“Decreased mowing, increased timber harvesting, even if it’s on a small scale, more burns during non-nesting times and increased predator control are all on the table for the coming years.”

Personally, I experienced much the same as Pendley and others. I filled my two tags, but it wasn’t easy. I also attempted to help family and friends in the field, and that didn’t come nearly as easily as it generally does, either.

All in all, landowners and land managers must start doing whatever possible to help turkey populations rebound. The future of turkey hunting depends on it.