During the fall of 2003, a total of 26 counties were opened to fall wild turkey hunting, 15 counties were opened to a two-four week season, and 11 were opened to a one-week season. The harvest (1,841) was 34% lower than the 2002 total of 2,808 (Table 4), and unfortunately, a decline in harvest has now occurred two years in succession.

All DNR Districts, except District 6, had lower harvests than 2002. District 4 had the highest reported kill (429), followed by District 2 (421), District 6 (358), District 3 (293), District 1 (242), and District 5 (97). It is amazing that District 6, with a one-week fall season, reported a higher harvest than District 3 that contains the once top fall-hunted counties like Pocahontas and Randolph. The traditional fall-hunted counties that are open from two-four weeks still accounted for a majority of the fall kill (70%) with 1,291 birds reported. The counties opened to fall hunting in the mid-1990's had a kill of 550, 30% of the total. The top five counties during the fall 2003 season were Greenbrier (245), Monroe (184), Preston (126), Hampshire (116), and tied for fifth Jackson (100) and Pocahontas (100). The harvest by WMAs is illustrated in Table 5. WMA harvest (208) was 36% lower than the total last fall (323). The WMAs with the highest harvests were on the Monongahela National Forest , and these areas acounted for 55% of the total public land harvests in 2003 versus 64% of the total during 2002. The top five WMAs were Neola (35), Wardensville (28), Little River (15), Cranberry (14), and Rimel (13).

The opening week of the fall season accounted for 57% of the total kill and was 6% lower than 2002 (Table 6). The last week of the season accounted for only 8% of the harvest, and this was surprisingly low since the last week of the season ended just before the white-tailed deer firearms season. Apparently, either many hunters did not take advantage of the last Saturday of the season or few hunters scouted just prior to the deer season.


Written by James C. Pack

Click On Links Below For PDF Versions of Tables 4-6.

Table 4. Fall Harvest of Wild Turkeys In West Virginia, 1999-2003.
(PDF format, 5.36KB)

Table 5. Fall Turkey Harvest By Locality In West Virginia, 1999-2003.
(PDF format, 6.61KB)

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