The Spring Gobbler season is around the corner on April 27 with the Spring Gobbler Youth Hunt this weekend.

The youth hunt is for junior license holders accompanied by a licensed adult and is open one Saturday before the regular Spring opener.

It gives young hunters a chance at bagging one of Pennsylvania’s trophy animals before the adult hunters hit the woods.

The Spring gobbler license is part of the license purchased last year with the 2018-19 season.

The Spring gobbler is considered the last leg of the grand slam for PA hunters. The other parts of the grand slam are the Black Bear, the White Tail Buck and the PA Elk.

Getting any of the big game species is special, but bagging all four is both equal parts fortuitous and skilled hunting ability. I’ve known a few hunters who have completed this test but they are in rarefied company.

Getting ready for a gobbler requires that you complete a great deal of homework and leg work. Locating a bird can be difficult if you don’t have access to good turkey hunting habitat.

The hen turkeys are looking for food and water while the gobblers are in search of the hens.

In the Spring gobbler season, hens are off limits to hunters. They are preparing to nest and then hatch young and require plenty of protection to do so.

Between weather issues, finding food sources, predators, disease and accidents it can be very difficult to raise a brood. The last thing a hen turkey needs is a hunter searching for them, too.

The first part of the season requires that hunters cease hunting by noon and be out of the woods by 1 p.m. This relaxes later in the season when the hours are extended to a full day of hunting.

In the spring season, the hunter must remain stationary at a pre-selected stand with no stalking of a bird.

Turkey hunting can be very dangerous as hunters are fully camouflaged and use different calls to bring gobblers into the range of their shotguns.

Hunters use full choked shotguns with powerful turkey loads that are highly lethal for turkeys and humans alike.

I always sit with my back to a tree and facing out to where I expect to see man or bird coming toward me. Tie an orange flagging near your stand as well to alert other hunters that you are in the area. I always wear blaze orange in and out of the woods for personal safety and to eliminate accidents caused by over zealous hunters.

Believe it or not some hunters do try to stalk a bird by its gobble, sometimes it’s a hunter that sounds so lifelike.

Poor choice and an illegal one to stalk a gobbler.

There is nothing more exciting when you use your hunting skills to bring a gobbler into range and have him believe that your calls are the real deal.

The gobblers all come in a little different from a wary sneak to a full charge toward you. Some of the trophy birds are pretty wised up after dealing with hunters and predators for years.

You can measure up a trophy bird by three points of reference; his beard length and thickness, the length of his spurs, and the full-feathered, even fantail he shows off when strutting.

Make sure that you have your equipment ready and chances are if you do your homework correctly you will have a magnificent bird to look over and harvest.

The PA Game Commission decided to pass the changes in the PA Buck Rifle Opening Day, it will now be the Saturday after Thanksgiving instead of the usual Monday opener. This gives hunters three Saturdays to rifle hunt and 13 days of hunting time. The early muzzleloader season joins antlerless deer and black bear for the week.

You must possess both a regular license, a bear license and the antlerless license for the area that you want to hunt. The PGC allotted extra deer licenses across the state as well as our areas of 2D and 1A.

Anyone who wants to hunt from archery to muzzleloader to rifle has all the chances that anyone could want to harvest a deer or bear.

Remember to be on guard for ticks while on your forays into the brushy woods.

The ticks are out in force and definitely carry Lyme disease. I would be hard pressed to say that we all don’t know someone who has been affected by this terrible ailment. I have some good friends who have had strong side effects from the tick carried disease.

Check your body for ticks and if you detect one remove it immediately and follow up with an antibiotic from your PCP.

Until we meet again take care and have a Blessed Easter.

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.