MULLENS, W.Va. — All 55 West Virginia counties will have a fall turkey hunting season in 2016. The expansion of the season was the only major change in the 2016 big game hunting seasons in West Virginia.
“The major change was a modification of the fall turkey harvest strategy and every county in West Virginia this year will have some sort of fall season,” said Chris Ryan Game Biologist for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. “We won’t know how long until after the spring turkey season.”
The number of gobblers killed during the spring season will be a determining factor in whether a county’s season lasts for a week or two weeks. The season in the traditional mountain counties will have the normal four week fall turkey season. The turkey population across the state has grown to a level biologists are comfortable with the change according to Ryan.
“It speaks well for former and current biologists, the Natural Resources Police officers, and everybody involved in that management strategy,” he said. “We reviewed the data and made the proposal that a short season wouldn’t have any negative impact on the population, plus the comments back from the public were very positive.”
The Natural Resources Commission approved the change at its Sectional Meeting held at Twin Falls State Park. The commission also finalized the season dates and bag limits for bear and deer seasons. The framework of both will be largely unchanged from 2015.
“The structure is ultimately the same, but there are some counties that will become a little more conservative or a little more liberal, when it comes to harvest,” said Ryan. “But the framework is exactly the same.”
There had been a push by certain segments of the public to make changes to the buck harvest in West Virginia. Those ideas were not reflected in the new regulations. The bear seasons will again be split into three separate early seasons in different parts of the state. Ryan said the early seasons last year were enjoyed by hunters who could travel from other parts of the state and offered various hunting experiences.
“They were very successful and very popular,” said Ryan. “We had the real early seasons in the coalfields, then had the early season in the mountains, and then had another season in Boone, Fayette, Raleigh, and Kanawha Counties. It helped hunters to go hunting in different parts of the state in different times of the year.”
The regulations will be printed and published very soon and the county by county changes in bag limits will be reflected in the published regulations.