Post by Woody Williams on Dec 2, 2005 11:41:30 GMT -5
I sent an email to Steve Backs asking him about the fall turkey harvest numbers..
The following is his response..
Woody,
Our fall turkey harvest information was collected through our statewide deer check stations and because of the volume of check station logs related to the deer harvest, we inherently run into a backlog of getting the data and in the data entry process so the only figures I can give you are very preliminary based on a manual tabulation.
As it now stands, it looks like about 100 birds were taken during the archery portion of the season and about another 530+ taken during the gun portion of the season for a total of 630+. At this point based on the dwindling number of turkey harvest reports on the log sheets, I expect the total fall harvest to be between 630 to 700 birds.
As far as changing the structure of the fall hunt, as in the original proposal, we had planned to keep the structure the same for at least a 3-5 year evaluation period before making any changes other than the counties open to hunting which are determined on an annual basis.
Unfortunately, the first season was characterized by abnormally warm weather (e.g., hunters complained about mosquitoes the last week, the first killing frost was 20 days later than normal) and we had one of the heaviest mast crops in recent years. These factors made hunting conditions less than desirable.
I hope to have all the fall turkey harvest data in hand for analysis in January which will allow me to determine the distribution of the harvest by days of the season, weapon used, geographically, and some idea of the age structure.
Steven E. Backs, Wildlife Research Biologist
The following is his response..
Woody,
Our fall turkey harvest information was collected through our statewide deer check stations and because of the volume of check station logs related to the deer harvest, we inherently run into a backlog of getting the data and in the data entry process so the only figures I can give you are very preliminary based on a manual tabulation.
As it now stands, it looks like about 100 birds were taken during the archery portion of the season and about another 530+ taken during the gun portion of the season for a total of 630+. At this point based on the dwindling number of turkey harvest reports on the log sheets, I expect the total fall harvest to be between 630 to 700 birds.
As far as changing the structure of the fall hunt, as in the original proposal, we had planned to keep the structure the same for at least a 3-5 year evaluation period before making any changes other than the counties open to hunting which are determined on an annual basis.
Unfortunately, the first season was characterized by abnormally warm weather (e.g., hunters complained about mosquitoes the last week, the first killing frost was 20 days later than normal) and we had one of the heaviest mast crops in recent years. These factors made hunting conditions less than desirable.
I hope to have all the fall turkey harvest data in hand for analysis in January which will allow me to determine the distribution of the harvest by days of the season, weapon used, geographically, and some idea of the age structure.
Steven E. Backs, Wildlife Research Biologist
