(Radio Iowa) – The first of the wild turkey seasons opens today (Friday) with the youth hunt. D-N-R wildlife biologist Jim Coffey says he expects hunter numbers to be good. “We’ll issue just probably around 50 to 52-thousand licenses this year. And that’s one reason why we do have the split seasons,” he says. Coffey says turkey hunters like to be out on their own, and don’t like to be interfered with by other hunters.
Coffey says they’ve had several good nesting season and there should be plenty of turkeys out there — but that doesn’t guarantee you’ll bag one. “About 25 percent of our licenses are put on birds, meaning they successfully harvested a bird,” Coffey says. “And so people should expect that only one in four hunters will actually take a bird in the spring.”
Coffey says turkeys use their eyes and their ears very well, and that makes them tough to get. He says a good strategy is to scout out the birds first. “Locate the bird usually the night before where they’re roosting, the location, and then get in on them fairly early in the dark in the night so that you’re close and you minimize your movements that they can see. And then you’re mimicking a hen. You’re trying to call that male, that gobbler to you by imitating a hen that he wants to breed with,” Coffey says.
He says this calling the tom turkey to you is the opposite of nature. “Nature, the male gobbles and the hen goes to him. So we often refer to that as the spring dance, is who will come to who, because we’re trying to beat nature and convince that male that he needs to come to us, but he really wants us to come to him,” Coffey says. Coffey says you can find wild turkeys almost anywhere in Iowa.
“The last few years we’ve harvested turkeys in all 99 Iowa counties. And there are good turkey numbers in all 99 Iowa counties, just realizing that all 99 counties are not equal. There’s a lot of difference from east to west, from north to south,” he says.
The youth-only wild turkey season for residents age 15 and younger runs today (Friday)through April 12th. Season 1 is April 13th to the 16th, season 2 is April 17th to the 21st, season 3 is April 22nd to the 28th, season 4 is April 29th to May 17th. The Resident Archery Only season is April 13th to May 17th.
