ELKINS, W.Va. — A number of spring turkey hunters in West Virginia have long complained the season in our state opened too late. For many years Virginia and other neighboring states have opened up their spring gobbler season at least a week before West Virginia. That won’t be the case this year.
West Virginia’s opening day for spring gobbler hunting is Monday, April 18, a full week earlier than previous years. The Natural Resources Commission agreed to the change, but will closely monitor how it goes and could easily return it to the fourth Monday in April if it shows any negative impact on the turkey numbers..
“I think it was a bending to pressure from the public,” said Keith Krantz, small game biologist for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. “But I think they agreed to it with the understanding they could easily change it back if necessary.”
It isn’t the first time the season has opened early. Krantz said the earlier opening was tried back in 1964 but it didn’t produce a measurable change in the outcome. He didn’t ‘t think the change this year would make much difference either.
“I really will be surprised if it brings forth what the public wants,” he said. “I say that because the gobblers are still with hens and they’ll be with hens even more when bringing the season in earlier. They might hear more gobbling, but I don’t think, they’re going to have any more success at calling a gobbler away from a group of hens.”
The long held resistance to move back opening day came for a couple of reasons. There is some dispute about whether it’s better to open the season at the time of the first peak gobbling or afterward. The concern would be shooting mature gobblers before they have been able to complete breeding the majority of hens. The other issue stems from data from several decades ago which indicated allowing hunting before the majority of hens go to nest tended to increase incidents of poaching. When hens are on the nest they aren’t exposed to hunters and are unlikely to wind up at the end of a poacher’s gun.
“We run into more issues with hens being in front of hunters the earlier in the month it starts,” said Krantz. “We hope most hens will be on the nest and won’t be in front of a hunter and possibly leading to a mistake.”
Since a legal turkey must have a three inch visible beard, Krantz said there’s no excuse for such a mistake.
As for turkey numbers in West Virginia, brood reports from 2015 were stellar, especially in the southern coalfield counties. However, it’s the hatch from two years ago on which Krantz puts more emphasis.
“Because the average gobbler shot is a 2 year old bird, the brood survey from last year doesn’t really tell us much about this year’s spring gobbler harvest. We need to go back to 2014,” Krantz explained. “In 2014, our brood reports were 30 percent higher than in 2013 and mimicked a five year average. That tells us we should have an average population out there for this spring gobbler season.”
Krantz said it’s likely those hunting in the steep hollows of the West Virginia coalfields however may be running into more jakes than mature gobblers.
“We had a really good hatch in the southern part of the state. It exceeded the five year average by more than 14 percent,” said Krantz. “Those guys down there, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t see more jakes running around the woods.”
The season runs for four weeks and although the opening date has changed, hunters still need to be out of the woods by 1 p.m. each day.