It's been quite an exciting turkey season - the tom moved from right to left then to the middle then to the right again. Gobbled like mad in the tree but shut up so hard on the ground we never heard him again.
I'm taking Friday off to pursue him one last time. I think the weather will cooperate, but will the bird? Get out this last weekend!
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SPRING GOBBLER (Bearded bird only): April 28-May 26, 2007. Daily limit 1, season limit 2. (Second spring gobbler may only be taken by persons who possess a valid special wild turkey license.)
I thought this was interesting (borrowed from http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?A=520&Q=170859)
The final 2005 spring turkey harvest, from the annual Game Take Survey, was 32,593, down 24 percent from 2003. (There were no final estimates for 2004 because the Game Take Survey was not conducted that year.) A decrease in harvest was expected because of the lower summer recruitment of 2003 and 2004, which provided fewer 2-year-olds and jakes in the spring 2005 population. These age groups typically comprise the majority of spring harvests. Also, adverse weather throughout the spring 2005 season may have negatively affected the overall harvest.
There were 247,304 spring turkey hunters, the most since 1983 (255,982). Statewide hunter success dropped to 13.2 percent, the lowest since 1994 (12.7 percent). While the number of spring turkey hunters has increased, the number of fall turkey hunters has decreased, with only 203,982 in 2005, the lowest since records have been kept (1983). Not surprisingly, the fall 2005 harvest of 25,173 was 19 percent lower than 2003 (31,100).
The preliminary spring 2006 harvest, calculated from report cards, shows approximately 44,000 gobblers were taken, including nearly 1,500 harvested by 8,041 Special Turkey License holders (second turkey).
A 4-year multi-state research project designed to study the survival of wild gobblers in Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio was launched in the winter of 2005-06 in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit with funding assistance from the National Wild Turkey Federation Grant-in-Aid program. Each state has a goal of banding 300 gobblers each winter of the 4-year study. Leg banding of gobblers began in mid-January 2006 and continued into early spring. Half of the bands were reward bands and the other half were standard bands. All bands had a toll-free phone number for reporting, which is being administered by PSU. Despite poor trapping conditions throughout the winter (lack of snow, warm weather and early spring green-up, all of which makes turkeys less likely to come to bait) 246 gobblers of the 300 quota were banded. Of 709 gobblers banded last winter (246 in PA), 196 gobblers were reported harvested (74 in PA).
Revision work continued throughout the year on an updated "Management Plan for Wild Turkeys in Pennsylvania." This updated plan will be used to direct the goals and objectives for turkey population management and research on a 10-year basis, 2006-2015. Comments on the draft Wild Turkey Management Plan were reviewed and a final version was being prepared as the fiscal year drew to a close.