After a couple of years of light fall turkey harvests, the Pennsylvania Game Commission is predicting a substantial statewide turkey population of around 212,000 birds for this year’s hunters. I have been seeing a pretty good number of turkeys over the past few months, but some hunting friends I’ve talked with have told me they aren’t seeing a lot of birds. The fall season for many of our local WMUs is underway running from Nov. 2-16 and again from Nov. 28-29, and it will be interesting to see what kind of success or lack thereof shows up in the days to come.

To increase your chances of success, head for the turkey’s food sources — beechnuts, acorns, and wild grapes are likely good spots to hunt. If you are not finding fresh scratching, you may want to move to another location since most crops vary from one location to another.

While hunting the fall season, any turkey can be taken — bearded or not, but if you’ve been around the game for a while, you may want to hold out for a bearded or male bird. Fall turkey seasons are adjusted according to how many females are taken, so we want to avoid taking too many hens. Sometimes the jakes or young males are hard to distinguish from the females, especially when moving. Jakes may have visible beards, but they are likely only a couple of inches at best, and sometimes they cannot even be distinguished. On occasion, even hens may sport a small beard. Hens are usually smaller, and their breast feathers are tipped with a band of brown or buff while toms have black borders, thus making the male bird appear darker overall with a “polished” appearance. If I have a first-time turkey hunter out, I have no qualms with encouraging them to nail their first bird even if it is a hen — then they can get picky.

Pennsylvania Game Commission statistics show that fall turkey hunting success in 2018 increased to 9 percent from a record low of 7.6 percent in 2017. Statistics also show that over 60 percent of the fall harvest is typically female birds.

Bear in mind too that there are some changes to regulations regarding fluorescent orange for fall turkey hunters. Fall turkey hunters are no longer required to wear any fluorescent orange material, and the same applies to archery hunters involved in the overlapping seasons. That being said, however, I believe I will still sport an orange hat while moving through the woods when archery hunting and turkey hunting; I’m not convinced that wearing orange while chasing fall turkeys cuts into your chances of success. Keep in mind too that another new regulation means we can no longer hunt fall turkeys on the Saturday after Thanksgiving since that Saturday is now the opening of the statewide firearms deer season.

I hope to get my compound bow out a few more times this season for deer, but with the overlap of fall turkey season and archery deer season, I can look forward to a chance at either or both in the coming days ahead. I’d be happy with a decent buck, but taking a fall turkey would certainly be a nice plus.