Archery only season?
Contributors to this thread:Turkey
From: Rut Nut
27-Mar-23
Someone mentioned on the Pa Forum that some states have an Archery Only season for Spring Gobblers?
Just curious what states have it and how long it lasts?
I don’t think we have any states in the East with an archery only season for turkeys ........................at least I am not aware of any!
From: midwest
27-Mar-23
NE, SD, KS do.
From: Nogutsnostory
27-Mar-23
Mn has over the counter Archery Turkey tags. The season starts on April 12 and ends on May 31.
From: BOHNTR
27-Mar-23
AZ and CA have them. Average a month.
From: KHNC
27-Mar-23
I used NE for my Archery Slam. I did get caught in 23 inches of snow after it was 70 the day before one year. Stuck in motel for rest of hunt.
From: BOHNTR
27-Mar-23
AZ and CA have them. Average a month.
From: Brotsky
27-Mar-23
SD no longer has an archery only season. It was shut down by our game and fish commission effective with the 2023 season.
From: Rut Nut
27-Mar-23
Thanks guys!
Sorry to hear that Brotsky......................................would be nice to be able to hunt 'em without all the "RUN-N-GUNNERS" chasing them around!
From: midwest
27-Mar-23
"SD no longer has an archery only season. It was shut down by our game and fish commission effective with the 2023 season."
Dang, that sucks, Justin. The SD GF&P still shows an archery season for 2023, tho.
From: Matt
27-Mar-23
CA has an archery/youth season that extends beyond the end of the general season for 2 weeks. It starts in early May and most years here in central CA the breeding is pretty much wound down and the toms don’t tend to respond very well to calls.
From: Corax_latrans
27-Mar-23
Seems like not very many are differentiating between Archery and Archery ONLY. Hard to tell with only 1 set of dates.
From: StickFlicker
27-Mar-23
While Arizona does have an OTC Spring Turkey archery hunt, it's a little misleading since you state your desire would be to not have the gun hunters chasing them around. In Arizona, the bow season is AFTER the youth gun hunts, then the early gun hunts, and then the late gun hunts. So, the birds have been chased with guns for about a month before archery opens, and THEN all those gun hunters that were unsuccessful are allowed to hunt with guns during the "archery only" season. It's really messed-up and success is practically zero.
From: Rut Nut
28-Mar-23
WOW! Yeah, from the sounds of it they might as well not even bother having an Archery Season! : (
From: Brotsky
28-Mar-23
We do have an archery season Nick, but it runs concurrent with firearms season. Prior to 2023 we had a week of "archery only" prior to firearms season starting. They stole that week away from us in the 11th hour this year. Very sad.
From: midwest
28-Mar-23
Bastards!
From: Brotsky
28-Mar-23
Ryan certainly had a bit of the benefit of that season a few years back Scoot!
From: Rut Nut
28-Mar-23
Yeah, that really stinks! Did they give you any reason for it?
From: Brotsky
28-Mar-23
I actually agree with the reasoning, but not shorting the archery season. There have been a few studies lately that have shown that turkeys have lower nesting success in states with early turkey seasons. They are pushing the seasons start dates back to test the outcome as we are having turkey population issues like many states. Problem is they just moved archery back and left firearm the same. They should have pushed them both back a week and left archery a week on its own. They pushed the Black Hills firearm season back to April 22. Bowhunters in this state always get the shaft! Pun intended!
From: blue spot
28-Mar-23
Maine and New Hampshire run their spring seasons concurrently, but both allow an extended fall bow season with shorter gun seasons. I could be out of date on Maine, there was a lot of land owner frustration with excessive turkey numbers and they recently made the fall bow/shotgun season 5 per person either sex and no tagging. I cant remember if bow still gets extra days
From: Rut Nut
28-Mar-23
Yeah, I don’t mind changes if there is a good biological reason for it. But like you said Beitsky...................they should have pushed the firearms opener back a week too! : (
