What is your favorite season to draw a tag for?

If you could choose your season, which would it be each spring? A, B, D, maybe F??

I try to get A here in WI every year birds are on good patterns but mother nature can burn you once in awhile with snow. I have killed birds in every season.

I think allot of that depends on the farm that you are hunting, In my case I will have more than 100 birds in the food plots all winter, But as soon as the snow is gone so are the Birds. By season c or d they will move back in and my chances of killing a good tom is very good.
That being said If the birds were on my farm for season A thats when I would try and draw a tag.

I always try for A first too. I hunt mostly public or farmland that anyone can get access to so I want to get to the birds before they have been called to by someone else. By late seasons, I’m on the water looking for walleyes. Plus, the ticks and skeets are a lot worse.

I try for C most of the time, but last year the little guy went A and I loved it!

Looking back at the history of my farm paints an unusual picture. I really like the youth and A season, plus how aggressive the few toms we see in the last season. I never really looked at how good the mid season was to me, until now. Ironicly, I always suggest A,B, & E because mentally it seems like better success. The numbers tell me otherwise..

Spring youth hunts – guided two years with 3 kids and went 2 for 3

A – Batting about 40% success

B – going 37%

C – almost 58%

D – under 40%

E – 31%

F – nearly 22%

The last two winters will continue to have a negative affect by me. They winter kill has been just awful.

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If you could choose your season, which would it be each spring? A, B, D, maybe F??

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A very simple question with an incredibly complex answer in my opinion!

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and there’s quite a few variables which come into play – changing the game slightly from year to year. Among those are weather, hunting pressure, last year’s crop sources, etc.

That said, speaking in the most general terms, I use two or three general guidelines when picking seasons. First, and most predictable, is average gobbling activity. The more the gobbling, the more male birds are looking to attract females – and more importantly, willing to search them out. Attached is a graph from a study done by TR Michels on Minnesota birds. Average out the activity from year to year, and you see two peaks – one extremely early in the season, another mid-season. The thought is that toms gobble early in the season and increasingly until hens are ready to breed, thus creating a lull where toms are with hens. When they go off to nest, another peak is created by the lack of available hens to breed. These peaks most typically coincide with Pre-A – B seasons in MN for the first, and sometime E – F for the second peak. Does this mean you can’t find willing gobblers outside of these times, obviously not, but it’s a good rule of thumb to start with anyway.

The second thing I look for is pressure. Depending on how much land I have lined up to hunt, I start looking at what the pressure will be on that land and surrounding land. If it typically gets hit hard early, or continuously throughout the season, it’s nice to be one of the first people out there (hence the popularity of the A – season). Some properties get relatively light pressure, and if I’m hunting there, I’ll stick to the E-season. That’s still one of my best seasons. The greenery is sprouting and trees have some leaves (giving you better cover), temps are usually better, and birds tend to be pretty cooperative.

The last thing I always take into account is permit availability. That’s changed now with the re-zoning and permit numbers changing, and we’ll just have to see what success levels are in drawing permits.

In the end, there’s never a bad time to turkey hunt, get out there when you can!

Joel

I go for the earliest season of the year and always figure I can buy a tag for any season thereafter… Now since I am hunting Northern WI, so far once the tags are gone there are none available over the counter… I also prefer to fish once that opener comes, but our land is in a zone that has lots of late season tags further south for seasons 4, 5,& 6…

Mark