This coming Saturday, May 4, there will be clucks, purrs and gobbles emanating from Penn’s Woods as the spring gobbler hunting season kicks off. The season gives hunters 24 days, including four Saturdays, to hunt spring turkeys as the season concludes May 18.

And the prospects look good according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The agency said that thanks to three consecutive years of good reproduction. A 2023 summer turkey sighting survey also found 2.9 poults per hen statewide. WMU 4E, for example, saw 4.51 poults per hen last summer that was the highest in the state. However, WMU 5D saw just 1.39 that was the lowest. But the statewide figure, down from the record high of 3.1 seen in both 2021 and 2022, was still above average and significantly more than seen on 2019 or 2020.

Per Mary Jo Casalena, PGC’s turkey biologist, that should mean plenty of gobblers - jakes, 3-year olds and, best for most hunters, 2-year olds. Casalena contends that as a general rule, 2-year olds are more vocal, nosier than both younger, more timid gobblers and older, warier birds. And having more of them around is good for hunters.

The PGC says that about 172,000 people, on average, hunt spring turkeys in Pennsylvania every year. Last season, hunters harvested about 39,500 gobblers which was up from about 35,700 in 2022 and about 28,000 in 2021.

Friends who live in Lehigh Township and near the Blue Mountain, had 20 turkeys in their backyard three weeks ago, but haven’t seen them since. Perhaps a good place to hunt.

Casalena says hunters who want to improve their odds of taking a gobbler should concentrate on areas with good turkey habitat. That’s typically a 60/40 mix of woods and shrubby areas, with either agriculture or, in big woods areas, openings of emerging vegetation or nut-producing trees that still have nuts remaining from last fall.

She suggests trying to determine where their roost areas are, and what areas they may switch to on rainy, windy, cold mornings. Casalena goes on to say that it pays to figure out the age structure of local flocks, something that can be done by observing gobbler tail fans (adults have even fans, whereas jakes have a “bump” of longer tail feathers in the center) and watching for displays of dominance.

“Scout too, by looking for gobblers preferred strutting areas and searching for sign on the ground, such as scratchings, droppings, feathers and tracks. Just don’t call to those birds to make them reveal themselves,” she recommends.

Casalena limits any preseason calling to shock calls like owl and crow calls, and even then, sparingly, which she believes just educates the gobblers.

With the use of commercially made ground blinds becoming more popular, the PGC said they must be manufactured with man-made materials of sufficient density to block movement within the blind and they must completely enclose the hunter on all four sides and from above. This is in reference to the fanned tail blinds that are being sold that don’t hide hunter movement and are unsafe and unlawful to use in Pennsylvania. It’s also unlawful to hunt turkeys made of natural materials such as logs, tree branches and piled rocks. Additionally, hunters may only pursue turkeys by calling, as it’s unsafe to stalk turkeys or turkey sounds where in the past some hunters were shot in mistake for a gobbler.

Pennsylvania hunters may purchase a license to harvest a second gobbler in the spring season with a limit of one gobbler harvested per day. Sales of this license ends May 3, and may be purchased online but cannot be printed at home. So purchasing it directly from an issuing agent may be a better idea.