Hitting the average bull's-eye with the 2020 Ohio fall wild turkey-hunting season

 

A statistically insignificant one percent is all that separates the 2020 Ohio fall wild turkey kill from its three-year average.

The state’s fall turkey season concluded November 29 and saw a kill of 1,063 birds; a minuscule one-percent drop from the three-year average of 1,078 birds.

Beginning this year, the Ohio Division of Wildlife is utilizing longer term averages than comparing with the immediate previous years tally, the argument being that averages more accurately project the realities of a season.

“We were actually closer to a typical fall turkey season than I had first expected. That’s a positive,” said Mark Wiley, the Wildlife Division’s biologist in charge of the state’s wild turkey management program.

Wiley said also that 6,149 fall turkey permits were sold in 2020. In 2019, that figure 7,590. Both numbers do exclude free permits.

“The fall season is a tricky one to assign a number to, we don’t always see a pattern, perhaps as much as owing to hunter activity as anything else,” Wiley said.

The 2020 fall wild turkey season was open in 70 counties from October 10 through November 29. In all, 17 counties posted gains over their three years average while 10 demonstrated identical tallies. The remaining counties showed declines.

The top 10 counties for wild turkeys taken during the fall season are included shown below. The first number following the county’s name shows the harvest numbers for 2020, and the three-year average of turkeys taken in 2017, 2018, and 2019 is in parentheses. Numbers are raw data and subject to change.

The open counties were: Adams: 16 (14); Allen: 6 (7); Ashland: 10 (15); Ashtabula: 52 (37); Athens: 24 (15); Belmont: 20 (24); Brown: 15 (10); Butler: 15 (10); Carroll: 19 (24); Champaign: 4 (4); Clermont: 27 (21); Columbiana: 19 (27); Coshocton: 37 (51); Crawford: 2 (4); Cuyahoga: 4 (4); Defiance: 8 (13); Delaware: 7 (10); Erie: 7 (7); Fairfield: 7 (8); Franklin: 3 (4); Fulton: 10 (11); Gallia: 26 (27); Geauga: 27 (25); Guernsey: 28 (34); Hamilton: 6 (10); Hancock: 5 (4); Hardin: 4 (4); Harrison: 23 (27); Henry: 4 (3); Highland: 24 (25); Hocking: 20 (14); Holmes: 26 (27); Huron: 9 (9); Jackson: 18 (18); Jefferson: 21 (17); Knox: 20 (20); Lake: 10 (8); Lawrence: 17 (12); Licking: 28 (26); Logan: 7 (7); Lorain: 8 (11); Lucas: 13 (12); Mahoning: 10 (13); Medina: 14 (15); Meigs: 22 (20); Monroe: 23 (22); Morgan: 10 (19); Morrow: 10 (11); Muskingum: 20 (20); Noble: 16 (24); Paulding: 3 (6); Perry: 15 (17); Pike: 12 (12); Portage: 14 (15); Preble: 7 (8); Putnam: 2 (5); Richland: 22 (23); Ross: 19 (16); Scioto: 14 (17); Seneca: 7 (6); Stark: 18 (19); Summit: 9 (12); Trumbull: 36 (25); Tuscarawas: 26 (35); Vinton: 20 (14); Warren: 10 (5); Washington: 25 (17); Wayne: 14 (8); Williams: 8 (20); Wyandot: 1 (4). 2020 Total: 1,063. Three-Year Average Total: 1,078.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com