ASSOCIATED PRESS The statewide spring gobbler season is fast approaching in Pennsylvania with the spring turkey hunting on Saturday, April 27 and the statewide period from May 4-31.

There’s one guarantee that comes with each spring turkey season. Matching wits with wily gobblers is what turkey hunting’s all about. And opportunities will be there, often in large and vocal fashion.

Pennsylvania’s 2024 spring gobbler season begins on Saturday, April 27 with a half-day hunt for junior hunters and mentored hunters 16 and under. All participants must be accompanied by adults, while hunting hours are from one-half hour before sunrise until noon. The regular season runs May 4-31, with hunting hours going from one-half hour before sunrise until noon from May 4-18, then from one-half hour before sunrise until one-half-hour after sunset from May 20-31.

If that general opener seems later in spring than usual, it is. But that’s simply due to the calendar.

The regular season opens the Saturday closest to May 1. In some years that’s the last Saturday in April. In other years, like this one, that’s the first Saturday in May. The difference between the two can be almost a week.

Closing day of the season, meanwhile, is May 31. That gives hunters 24 days to chase gobblers, including four Saturdays.

And rest assured, the birds will be out there, thanks to three consecutive years of good reproduction. The Game Commission’s 2023 summer turkey sighting survey – an annual, long-term measure of productivity – found 2.9 poults per hen statewide. That varied by Wildlife Management Unit (WMU), of course. WMU 4E, for example, saw 4.51 poults per hen last summer; that was highest in the state. WMU 5D saw 1.39; that was lowest.

But the statewide figure, if down from the record high of 3.1 seen in both 2021 and 2022, was still above average and significantly more than seen in 2019 or 2020.

That should mean plenty of gobblers – jakes, 3-year-olds and, best for most hunters, 2-year-olds. As a general rule, 2-year-olds are more vocal, noisier than both younger, more-timid gobblers and older, warier ones. Having more of them around typically is good for turkey hunters.

“There’s nothing more exciting than sitting in the woods in springtime and calling to a gobbler that answers with his emphatic gobble,” said Mary Jo Casalena, the Game Commission’s turkey biologist. “So take advantage of what’s available, even if you’ve never turkey hunted before. Just being out there is fun and the more time you spend in the turkey woods, learning about these amazing birds, the better hunter you’ll become.”