Hunt Smart, Fish Hard
Leon Mettler

This is the Press Release from the (DWR) for the 2022 Spring gobbler season:

The Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) announced a harvest of 19,711 turkeys during the 2022 spring turkey season (Figure 1). This is the fourth highest spring turkey harvest on record, with the three highest harvests having occurred in 2015, 2021 and 2020.

Ryan Brown, DWR Executive Director, stated, “Virginia’s spring turkey season continues to provide exciting opportunities for individuals to connect with nature, family and friends while helping to conserve the state’s wildlife resources.”

The 2022 harvest was well within DWR staff expectations, and the slightly lower harvest this season appears to be driven by lower participation on opening weekend caused by poor weather. Much of the western portion of the state experienced cold and wind with several counties reporting snow on opening day. The opening weekend harvest was down approximately 28 percent from the 2021 spring turkey harvest. This difference was minimized through the remaining five weeks of the season as the harvest totals finished only 4 percent lower than last year.

There’s more to this in the current issue of the Times Virginian newspaper. Support local journalism by purchasing the issue at a local newsstand or subscribing at www.timesvirginian.com/subscriber_services to receive the print edition or view the full article in the e-edition version.