Hunters in Erie County and Crawford County could be in for some of the best fall turkey hunting the state has to offer.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission suggests Wildlife Management Unit 1B, which includes all of Erie County, most of Crawford County and parts of Warren and Venango counties, could rival last year’s 22 percent hunter success rate.
The shotgun and bow-and-arrow season begins Nov. 1 and runs through Nov. 15 in WMUs 1A and 1B and 2F. Hunting hours are half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.
Mary Jo Casalena, a Game Commission wild turkey biologist, said the state’s population is above its 10-year average because of good reproduction the past two years and short fall seasons that protect hen populations. She numbered the population at 335,00 in the spring, before reproduction added to the ranks.
She expects the state success rate to match 2007’s 16 percent, but to again be higher in northwestern Pennsylvania.