Reason for start dates?

[Tail Feathers]

I'm from East Texas, 100 miles north of Houston.  I live in the Piney Woods and timber production is big here.  The timber management practices don't agree with turkeys around here evidently.

I'm about as far south as south MS and our season starts April 15 this year.
It lasts a month but will be well up in the 90's before season ends.
Gobbling stops about the end of April around here and gobblers are back in bachelor groups by the first week of May.

But our population is declining and they want to save some birds.

What State are you from?

From what you are saying States must set start dates on inticipated harvest? and not neccessarily the phase of breeding? Your State is starting late and wants to save numbers? That makes more sense, just as our State starts late and might want to limit the kill with our vast number of hunters? As they tell us it starts after the vast majority of hens have breed? So I'd have to believe some Southern States with early start dates are hitting the front end of breeding rather than the end like here?

[jakebird]

Well, I'm a PA boy too. All I can tell ya is I've learned to trust the biologists. They've made this theire area of expertise and they know their stuff. Add to this that the majority of them are hunters like you and me. They would never intentionally steer us wrong. Scientific study of breeding and hatch timings, as well as gobbling peaks substantiate that our season is biologically sound, allowing for the majority of hens to be incubating when we open, which is desirable from a hunting standpoint. We would all love an earlier season, but who can argue with success? Our turkey pops are at or near all time highs, while several states ( missouri comes to mind) with liberal seasons and bag limits are seeing declining pops. We have a great thing going here in Pa. Could we have increased opps? Perhaps. But i would expect it in small, slow increments. I wouldnt want to sacrifice our excellent hunting if a longer or earlier season ended up having a negative impact on populations.

[jakebird]

Also, keep in mind that neighboring states have seasons that run very closely with ours...new york, ohio, new jersey, wv and va just a tad earlier...If PA is wrong, i guess everyone else in our region is wrong, too!

[MAKEemQUIVER]

Im from Ky and our season is setup so that majority of the breeding is done before season opens also, and personally I love it. I think that it is great that we have very good chances at dealing with lone gobblers and not longbeards that are following 12 hens.

My favorite week of hunting is usually the first week of May, I have seen birds strutting and gobbling in late June before. It dont take much hunting pressure to make birds tight lipped, Gobblers dont stop doin their thing just because they havent been with a hen in a day or two.

It also allows time for the landscape to green up so that you have some foliage to help hide you.