With Ohio’s two-tier spring wild turkey-hunting season only a few weeks away, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s lead biologist on the subject is saying the 2021 event will more than likely mirror what most hunters encountered in 2020.
Now the fall 2021 wild turkey-hunting season may prove something different. At least possibly for some counties anyway.
Last spring, turkey hunters in Ohio – both in the South Zone along with those in Northeast Zone as well as participants in the youth-only season - killed a combined 17,894 birds. That figure is down from the 19,088 bearded wild turkeys shot during the spring 2019 season.
The most-ever number of birds during any spring season in Ohio were the 26,156 turkeys shot in 2001. Since 2000, spring wild turkey hunters have killed 20,000 or more birds 10 times, the last one being the 22,612 birds taken during the 2018 spring season.
The ten best 2020 spring season wild turkey counties were: Belmont – 533; Monroe – 532; Tuscarawas – 528; Guernsey – 508; Meigs – 503; Muskingum – 499; Washinton – 484; Harrison – 458; Coschocton – 450; and Ashtabula – 449.
Data supplied by the Ohio Division of Wildlife shows that the hunter success rate last year was 20.2 percent for residents (down from the 25.1 percent in 2019); 19.4 percent for non-residents (down from the 26.5 percent in 2019); 22.5 percent for youths (down from the 23.5 percent in 2019); and 17.2 percent (down from the 20.4 percent in 2019) for those persons eligible to purchase reduced cost turkey tags.
This year’s spring wild turkey-hunting season is April 24th to May 23rd in the South Zone, and May 1st to 30th in the North Zone and which consists of the counties of Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Trumbull, and Ashtabula.
The statewide youth-only season will run April; 17th and 18th.
Properly licensed or permitted hunters can shoot up to two bearded-only birds during the spring season but only one per day.
Mark Wiley is the biologist employed by the Division of Wildlife to study and help manage the state’s wild turkey flock. He says that the statewide spring harvest typically mirrors the trends observed in the reproductive index. In other words, the poults per hen ratio of the preceding few years, Wiley says.
“The statewide reproductive index was below the long-term average during the summers of 2017, 2018, and 2019, but rose above the long-term average in 2020,” Wiley says.
“This pattern suggests spring hunters in 2021 should encounter numbers of mature gobblers similar to 2020, but slightly elevated numbers of jakes.”
However and importantly, Wiley says also, that although the statewide reproductive index rose above the long-term average in 2020, “poult numbers were inconsistent across Ohio’s regions.”
Most notably, poult numbers in southeast Ohio were much lower than all other regions last summer, Wiley said, continuing.
“This regional disparity suggests hunters in southeast Ohio are unlikely to see the bump in jake numbers other regions of the state will experience,” Wiley says.
In looking toward the fall 2021 season – which is proposed to run October 9th through November 28th – Wiley says “it is worth mentioning the 17-year periodical cicada Brood X will emerge en-masse in portions of southwest and west-central Ohio in summer 2021.”
Wiley says such so-called “emergences” are often associated with excellent wild turkey poult numbers due to an abundance of fat and protein-rich insects the young birds can feast on.
This all comes with something of a caveat, though, says Wiley.
“The Brood X emergence has shown little evidence of substantial impact on wild turkey numbers. This may be because the last emergence of Brood X occurred in 2004, a time when turkey populations were not yet fully established in parts of west-central Ohio,” Wiley said.
“We now consider turkey populations to be well established across the state and it will be interesting to see if Brood X has a more obvious impact.”
By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com
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