The Pennsylvania Spring Gobbler hunting season opens up next weekend with the Youth Hunt on April 22 from sunrise to noon. Junior hunters and mentored hunters 16 and under will have the first opportunity in 2023 to harvest a wild Pennsylvania turkey gobbler.

The bird must have a visible beard sprouting from its chest region and must be called into your hunting station. There are no drives, hunting with dogs or stalking the gobblers in this spring hunt. The adult hunt is a week later on April 29 across the state. There is a one bird limit unless you have purchased the second bird bonus tag from the PA Game Commission.

Although this is a camouflaged hunting clothing hunt, it is highly recommended to have some orange entering and exiting the hunting area for your safety. No turkey is worth an accidental shooting!

The turkey hunting season is one of the most accidental shooting prone times to be in the woods. Trees and shrubs are leafing out and visibility can be patchy at best.

Driving in Butler County, the southern tier below Rte. 422 is much further along with leaf sprouting than the northern end of the county. With the warm weather, I can predict many more plants will be blooming by the end of April.

Ticks are on the move now and turkey hunters who sit still for hours on end are a great target for the nasty pests. I sat near a rock wall one spring and found myself covered with ticks which had me worrying about debugging more than turkey hunting.

Careful checking of your clothing, hair and body is a must after a day in the woods. You do not want to have to deal with Lyme Disease from a tick bite.

Junior hunter’s debut

Taking a junior hunter on a Junior hunt for Gobblers is not an easy task. The very nature of a junior hunter is excitable and with a lot of movement by any kid. I learned first-hand what it is like to take a junior hunter on his first gobbler hunt.

I volunteered to take my nephew Cody on his first gobbler hunt many years back now. We had a lot of turkey activity near his grandfathers’ place and I was fairly confident that we could have an opportunity to see a gobbler and maybe even score on one.

The youth hunt requires that the adult carry one shotgun for the junior hunter until you are at your hunting location. So far, so good, as we were on schedule and following the rules of the hunt.

Taking an impressionable young hunter on their first hunt requires you to take every precaution and no shortcuts. We did not want any bad habits or an accident to mar our day in the woods.

We were using a pump shotgun with 2 ¾ inch high brass 4-6 duplex shells in a 12 gauge. He had a padded shoulder on his hunting vest in case the shot rocked him as it will with youngsters. We did spend some range time earlier in the season and he was OK in that regard.

We sat in some grapevines on a ridge trail and I made a few clucks with a box call. We didn’t overdo it as I already knew there were gobblers in the area. I waited for the first sounds of the songbirds awakening in the dawn hours and when we did hear them break the morning sunrise silence, I knew we were in great position!

The sun rises and day was beautiful and the trees and ferns began to take shape as more light filtered through the tree tops and down to our faces. I could feel the warmth through our face masks, hiding us away from the searching eyes of a wary gobbler, but we blended in well.

Just about that time, I heard a call of a gobbler coming from below us on the trail. I cued Cody to get ready as a gobbler may appear in front of us at any time. We searched the trail below us and watched for his appearance at any time.

There he was … a nice sized bird and heading toward us. We waited and then he seemed to be losing interest … I made one small call and he exploded into a gobble and ran up the hill to us.

I steadied Cody and told him to be ready as he would be coming over the rise at any second, sure enough the gobbler’s head appeared, then his neck and body. I whispered to Cody to take his shot, but he had trouble balancing the shotgun and made some extra movements.

It was now or never, but it seemed that the gobbler had seen enough, he swung around in a flash and ran down the trail out of range in a split second.

Cody looked at me and said, “Wow, he sure was fast!” I could only laugh and let him know that he wasn’t the only hunter that found out how fast a wild turkey could scramble out of danger.

Until we meet again, keep your back against a tree and be very careful out there!

Jay Hewitt is an outdoor columnist for the Butler Eagle