Turkeys and coyotes

[Killtree]

I discovered turkey hunting around 1987,or rather that is when I figured out we had a turkey season in Indiana.
Turkeys acted a lot different then. They gobbled like crazy in the evening before dark, and they would start gobbling well before daylight in the morning.
That was before the coyote population got established in my area.
I can tell you in this day and age I see more coyotes around fields in turkey season than any other time of year.
I attribute this to the fact that the spend a lot of time trying to ambush strutting Toms.
I rarely hear a bird gobble from the roost of an evening, and they don't seem to start gobbling of a morning until its daylight enough for them to see their surroundings well.
I believe this is because coyotes will slip in before daylight and lay in wait for the birds to fly down.
I have seen quite a few questions about shock gobbling, or birds gobbling from the roost of an evening, so I thought I would share why I don't hardly mess with trying to roost birds of an evening in my area any more.
I rarely use locator calls of any kind, and I really don't expect to hear birds fire up until 15 to 30 minutes after daylight.

[stash59]

Interesting! Thanx!!

[strutnrut716]

Time to hunt and trap coyotes !!

[brancher147]

I have had coyotes come under a roosted Tom in the morning while I was waiting for him to fly down. It definitely affects turkeys. But I am pretty sure coyotes are here to stay, so we gotta adapt to it...

[Jdw]

It is possible that over time hunting pressure could cause the same thing.
I have places where silent birds are much more likely to grow old.

[Killtree]

Hunting pressure absolutely can and does play a part in it.
We could also theorize that predators, us included, have weeded the most talkative birds from the gene pool, thus allowing the tighter lipped birds to propagate.
I personally don't like coyotes and blame everything I can on them, lol.