It appears the emergence this past summer of 17-year cicadas will likely minimally impact the take of birds during Ohio’s 2021 fall wild turkey-hunting season.
However, a slightly above average hatch of young turkeys – called poults – will still offer good hunting opportunity. Both for the small cadre of serious fall turkey hunters as well as for the believed-much larger opportunistic hunter.
This year’s fall wild turkey-hunting season runs Oct. 9 through Nov. 28 in 70 counties. Only one bird of either sex is allowed for those with a fall turkey-hunting tag. Spring tags are not legal tender, however. Hunting hours are one-half hour before sunrise until sunset, daily.
“Generally, we do see a spike in the fall turkey harvest when there’s been good poult production, and this year the statewide average was three poults per hen observed. The 10-year average is 2.7 poults per hen,” says Mark Wiley, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s lead wild turkey biologist.
Wiley said broken down by the five wildlife districts, District 1, 4 and 5 showed the best gains though the other two districts “were also very close.”
As the up-coming season bears any correlation to this year’s Brood X emergence of 17-year cicadas, that phenomena was heavy – but not as being wall-to-wall throughout the area covered by the appearance, Wiley said.
And that lack of uniformity may have played in a role in a good – but not, spectacular – wild turkey hatch this past spring.
“In the poult data we don’t seem to have a clear picture of more cicadas resulting in more poults, but the emergence was still beneficial,” Wiley says.
The reason being, says Wiley, the additional protein provided by the cicadas may have led to faster growth of the poults that were hatched. In turn, that might mean the birds will be in better shape to survive this winter. And possibly mean birds taken this fall may prove to be chunkier, Wiley says.
Just how well hunters do this fall will largely depend upon how many persons actually participate, obviously, says Wiley.
In 2020, the total reported turkey kill was 1,063 birds, a statistically insignificant 1-percent increase from the 2019 fall season, but still 18 percent below the 5-year average of 1,294 birds, Wiley said.
“Notable upticks in the fall harvest were evident in years with high reproductive indices; e.g., 1999, 2008, 2016,” Wiley said.
The top Ohio counties for the fall turkey kill were Ashtabula (52), Coshocton (37), Trumbull (36), Guernsey (28), and Licking (28).
Thus, says Wiley, a kill of 1,000 to 1,500 birds is a good predictable range for the 2021 fall season, Wiley says.
Of some curiosity perhaps, the number of birds shot in the fall by all archery tackle combined (47.8 percent) almost equals that of birds killed with a shotgun (52.2 percent). And since 2016, the percentage of fall birds killed with a shotgun has dropped from 62.9 percent to the 52.2 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of fall birds killed by all archery tackle combined has grown from 37.1 percent to the 47.8 percent.
This is a point Wiley has previously noted that may indicate how many fall birds are being taken opportunistically by archery deer hunters.
Interesting also, the 2020 fall season saw 467 adult female turkey shot, 106 juvenile female turkeys taken, 408 adult male turkeys shot, 70 juvenile males taken, with the rest being described as “unknown.”
Thus, 573 female turkeys were killed verses 478 males, for a difference of 95 more female turkeys than male turkeys having been killed during Ohio’s 2020 fall season .
Which might prove significant. Pressure is mounting to apply the brakes to the fall season’s kill, particularly as it relate to the taking of hens. Such a reduction in the cropping of the species’s females could lead to a rebounding over time of the wild turkey’s total Ohio population, its is being argued by more than a few hunters.
A tail-end shortening of the season is one hen-reduction idea being floated about. And that is a point the Wildlife Division is keenly aware of, says Wiley.
“It’s all still be discussed, and generally we begin preparing our hunting proposals in the fall and winter for the net series of regulations,” Wiley said. “But nothing has been decided yet.”
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com
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