Kentucky Commerce Cabinet News Release
Spring Turkey Harvest on Pace for Record Season
May 3, 2006 Contact: Steven Dobey
IMMEDIATE RELEASE (800) 852-0942x474
Frankfort, KY –Last year’s mild winter and strong acorn crop have poised Kentucky turkey hunters for a memorable spring season this year. With less than one week remaining in the 2006 season, current numbers are on pace for a potential record spring harvest.
“The harvest now is almost 25,000 birds,â€

I have tracked the harvest #'s closely, and it looks like a new record was set by about 500 birds, total harvest 28700+

That said, I think next year's harvest will be reduced considerably......there was a healthy 2 year old population many places, but with a bad hatch last spring jakes were hard to find.

The record harvest has an "asterik" on it , I guess, in the sense that it is made in the longest turkey season , in terms of days, that Ky has ever had. Ky really does have some of the best eastern hunting I have ever seen. Filled two tags in less than 30 minutes each morning, and a friend filled his in about the same time lengths. Prett much the same thing with Freddy and me there last year. When you consider the Ky numbers and the Tenn numbers thus year, both states had a lot of birds taken in the face of what each state also considers to be the worst hatch in 30 years in spring of 2005 in terms of poults per hen. Course there are a lot more hens out tere than there were 30 years ago. And a lot more hunters. I think it might easier for game managers to reeastblish a population of turkeys than to figure out how to manage one that may be close to peak in numbers in the face of a continuing dramatic increase i n the numbers of skilled hunters. it wil be interstingto see how the next two years go in both Ky and Tenn, and to see if the hatch really was as bad as peopel think it was in 2005.