Tue. Oct 7th, 2025

Turkey, Rabbit and Pheasant Seasons Underway
The second phase of Pennsylvania’s small game seasons got off to a cold start last Saturday when rabbits and pheasants joined grouse and squirrel as legal game. The fall season for our largest game bird, the wild turkey, also began a week ago.
It seems that our late developing fall may have quickly turned into an early winter. The snow and ice of two weeks ago knocked many leaves off of the trees, finally opening up the forest for turkey, grouse and squirrel hunters. Acorns are still dropping in many areas, and your best bet for squirrels is to locate one of those patches of oaks with abundant acorns.
The low supply of wild grapes and apples this fall is making ruffed grouse more difficult to locate. Plus, grouse tend to hit thicker cover in bad weather. Morning hunters should consider southeast-facing slopes the best places to prospect for the banded-tailed beauties.
Damp conditions make perfect weather for beagles trying to earn a living by jumping and trailing rabbits. Good populations of cottontails are difficult to locate, but the hunters who know where to find them should have a great week.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission has raised over 190,000 pheasants for fall stocking. According to Carl Riegner, Chief of the agency’s Propagation Division, this is slightly short of their goal of “releasing 200,000 birds before and during the small game hunting seasons.”
Pheasants are stocked in four phases. Thirty percent, or approximately 57,900 birds were released the last week of October. About 48,250 birds were released last week, and the same number will be stocked this week. The remaining 20 percent of the PGC-raised birds will be released for hunters during the week of November 18.
All of Blair, Centre, Huntingdon, and Clearfield counties are in the either-sex pheasant zone. Both male and female pheasants are legal in these and other northern counties. A nice crop of 18,650 roosters and 5,530 hens are stocked in the commission’s Southcentral Region which includes both Blair and Huntingdon counties. A total of 3,370 males and 12,650 females are stocked in the commission’s Northcentral Region, which includes Centre County.
Wild Turkey
On my drive home from school November 1, I pulled over to watch three long-bearded gobblers feeding about 25 yards off of the side of Tyrone’s entrance ramp to northbound I-99. Maybe they were showing themselves that Friday – the eve of the season opener — because they knew that it wouldn’t be safe to display their beards after the following Saturday morning. Last spring’s cold, wet weather was reported to have hurt turkey reproduction, but you wouldn’t know it from all of the young turkeys sighted during the summer. The supply of adult turkeys is also excellent throughout most of our area.
According to PA Game Commission turkey biologist Mary Jo Casalena, the successive freezes during late May don’t appear to have lowered the state’s overall high wild turkey population.
“There were some nesting losses during the peak of first hatching in late May,” Casalena explained. “But dry weather for the remainder of the nesting season, as well as limited winter mortality, probably have offset those early nesting losses. I expect our turkey reproduction to be good for 2002, similar to the past three years.”
According to PA Game Commission estimates, the state’s wild turkey population has been gradually increasing during the past five years. In 1998, we had about 270,000 turkeys. Today, it is estimated that the statewide population is over 320,000 birds.
PA’s fall turkey hunters harvested just over 48,000 birds last year, an increase from the 44,865 harvested in the fall of 2000. Game Commission Executive Director Vern Ross said, “The 2001 fall harvest marks the fourth time that we’ve taken more than 40,000 fall turkeys. Three of these four highest harvests have occurred over the past three years. Turkey hunting during the past ten years has been exceptional in Pennsylvania,” Ross added. “It’s unlike anything the state has experienced in more than 100 years.”
Unfortunately, no discussion of turkey hunting is complete without the mention of safety. While Pennsylvania hunters have a great safety record, last fall 13 people were injured by sporting arms discharges while hunting turkeys. This was up from 10 such incidents that occurred in 2000. Nine of the 13 people shot last fall were shot because the hapless hunters mistakenly thought that the other hunters were turkeys.
Pennsylvania Game Commission Hunter-Trapper Education Division Chief Keith Snyder said, “It is discouraging to see these kinds of statistics. Last year was Pennsylvania’s safest hunting year on record, yet we have regressed in fall turkey hunting-related shooting incidents. The problem is the same: hunters are shooting people – often their friends and family – in mistake for turkeys.”
Hunters are reminded that, when they are moving, they must wear a minimum of 250 square inches of fluorescent orange on their head, chest and back – visible in all directions. They may remove the orange at a stationary calling spot, if they place a 100-square inch orange band around a tree within 15 feet of their hunting location.
“Every hunter assumes a serious responsibility when he or she heads afield,” Snyder said. “It’s up to the hunter to make sound shooting decisions. If there is the slightest doubt about your shot, please don’t shoot.”
Blair, Huntingdon and Centre counties fall into three of the state’s Turkey Management Areas: 3, 6, and 7-A, which all have a three-week fall season ending November 23. Casalena rates the population in all of these three counties to be very good or excellent.
It should be a great fall hunting season in central Pennsylvania. Let’s also make it a safe one.
Mark Nale can be reached at MarkAngler@aol.com

By Rick