During the fall of 2002, a total of 30 counties were opened to fall turkey hunting: 15 counties were opened to a two-four week season, and 15 were opened to a one-week season.  The harvest (2,808) was 20% lower than the 2001 total of 3,505 (Table 4).

 

All DNR Districts had lower harvests than 2001. District 3 had the highest reported kill (779), followed by District 2 (632), District 1 (586), District 4 (511), District 6 (197), and District 5 (103).  The traditional fall-hunted counties that are open from two-four weeks had a harvest of 2,065 and accounted for 74% of the total harvest, and the counties recently opened to a general one-week of hunting had a kill of 743, 26% of the total.

 

The top four counties were Greenbrier (308), Preston (238), Monroe (203), and Randolph (197) with Nicholas (161) and Pocahontas (161) tied for fifth.  The harvest by WMAs is illustrated in Table 5.  WMA harvest (323) was 38% lower than the total last fall (524). The WMAs with the highest harvests were on the Monongahela National Forest, and these areas accounted for 64% of the total public land harvests in 2002 versus 61% of the total during 2001.  The top five WMAs were Neola (48), Little River (36), Rimel (25), Wardensville (24), and Blackwater (23).

           

During the year 2001, the opening week of the fall season accounted for 68% of the total kill, and this dropped to 63% in 2002 (Table 6).  In 2001, when the last week of the season was in December and split from the earlier season, the last week of the kill amounted to 6% of the total.  In 2002, the season was not split, and the last week accounted for 9% of the total kill.

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, 1998-2002.
(PDF format, 5.36KB)

Table 5. Fall Turkey Harvest By Locality In West Virginia, 1998-2002.
(PDF format, 6.61KB)

Table 6. Fall Wild Turkey Harvest By Week of Season, 1998-2002.
(PDF format, 6.61KB)

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