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Get Ready For Gobblers

Timing alone would make it special. Pennsylvania’s upcoming spring gobbler season – the state’s only big-game hunt outside of fall and winter – takes place when the world seems new, freshly green and alive.

This year’s season began on Saturday, April 23, with a one-day hunt for junior and youth mentored hunters, then runs from Saturday, April 30, to Tuesday, May 31, for everyone else.

But it has a lot more going for it than just that.

Gobbler hunting is huge on excitement, too. There are few things as thrilling as calling in a wary turkey. No wonder more than 150,000 hunters take to forests and fields each spring to chase these birds.

Plenty of opportunity awaits them, as usual. In fact, Game Commission turkey biologist Mary Jo Casalena said the statewide flock – always among the largest anywhere in the East – is likely bigger right now than at any time in the last few years.

She credited that increase to a number of factors.

First, 2021’s recruitment – or influx of new turkeys into the population – was very good, courtesy of warm, dry weather last spring and, in places, lots of cicadas to eat. Survey work revealed 3.1 poults per hen, on average, statewide.

“That was our highest ratio since we began monitoring recruitment,” Casalena said.

A smaller-than-usual spring 2021 harvest and shorter fall turkey seasons in some Wildlife Management Units (WMUs), coupled with a statewide elimination of rifles for fall turkey hunting, also surely boosted flocks.

“That should all translate into a lot of high-spirited jakes on the landscape,” Casalena said. “Hunters should find a larger-than-normal percentage of older, 3-year-old turkeys out there, too. So there’s certainly reason for optimism again this year.”

 

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