DAVE>> Hello, my name is Dave Scarpitti. I'm a wildlife biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, and today I'm going to be presenting some information about turkey hunting regulations as part of your learn-to, as part of the youth turkey hunting seminar, and part of the requirements necessary to be eligible to hunt on youth day.
I’m just going to talk a little bit about turkey biology and how it relates to how we hunt turkeys in the spring.
So turkeys start to begin into the breeding phase. It's something that's triggered by day length, so the days this time of year start getting longer and longer. Turkeys become more and more compelled to want to breed, and a lot of this courtship is occurring right now, late February and into March. And this breeding activity and gobbling and different types of courtship continues into mid-April, where we see the peak of gobbling activity. And then the actual breeding or courtship continues, sort of peaks here in April, and then continues well into spring, which is exactly coinciding with when our spring turkey season exists.
During this time, we're going to hear lots of different vocalizations, and these vocalizations are really just ways that turkeys communicate with each other. Males are trying to attract females. Hens are vocalizing, organizing their flocks, kind of relaying information to the males. So whereas males are gobbling most of the time, hens are going to have a much more diverse set of vocalizations that we typically hear.
And this is kind of the really critical foundation of how spring turkey hunting occurs, where we're using and mimicking these vocalizations to lure male turkeys in close to us, to within range for harvest.
So I want to talk very specifically about identifying between male and female turkeys. This is important in terms of which ones we're going to look at for harvest, where we're going to be anxious to call into range, and then also from the standpoint of once we do harvest a bird, we want to be able to, when we have to submit a harvest report or document that harvest—whether it's at a check station or online—be able to use this information to accurately reflect what was harvested during the hunt.
So first and foremost, when we look at males, we know that they are very colorful, large body size, very dark in appearance. They appear generally black in color, and we see lots of characteristics here on the head: caruncles, these little lumps; wattles, these bigger bumps; a long elongated snood on the beak of the bird.
Females are much smaller in size. We see them just dull or drab color with very, very small bumps and wattles on their head, and a very small snood, kind of bluish gray in the head, whereas the males have more of a white, blue, red, very bright coloration on the head.
Another very useful way to distinguish males and females is the beard. The beard is some modified feathers that hang from the middle of the chest, as you can see right here. And this is the most critical factor that we need to identify when spring turkey hunting. During the spring season, only bearded turkeys may be harvested. So this is very important to be able to positively identify that the turkey has a beard before it is harvested.
Now this is almost always very prominently a male characteristic, but there is a small proportion of females that do have a beard, and those females are legal during the spring season. But again, generally speaking, we're looking to target and to harvest male birds. That saves those females to be able to produce more and more turkeys to maintain really strong populations over the long term.
Once we are able to harvest the turkey, we can get a rough sense of the age of the turkey based on the length of the beard. So turkeys with beards that are six inches or longer are generally adult birds, otherwise known as toms or gobblers, whereas turkeys with a beard less than six inches are juveniles, otherwise known as jakes.
So again, beard is the critical component to what is legal for harvest during the spring season, but we need to look at the entire bird—identify the head features, identify the sex. Here's an example of a female with a beard. So this again would be legal to harvest during the spring season, but ideally and optimally we want to be looking at harvesting males. That creates the best scenario for strong populations in the future.
So this is another thing we might see during the spring season. Over here on the right we have a very large mature male turkey, and you can see this long beard hanging down. Here we have a juvenile male, so this is a younger bird, and that beard is sticking out right here. And this is something, when you're hunting, if these birds are strutting, you've got to look really closely, really carefully, and really positively identify: okay, yes, that bird has a beard, yes that bird has a beard, I see it now, I know it's legal to harvest.
Another thing that we look at in terms of sex determination between males and females are the presence or absence of spurs on the leg. So males have this bony protrusion sticking out of their tarsus, that's called a spur. These kind of grow throughout the turkey's life, get longer and longer as they get older. They kind of wear down a little bit over time, but once they get really long.
Females, you'll note that they do not have spurs. And so, unlike what I said about beards on turkeys—where that's primarily a male characteristic but some females have it—it's exceedingly rare for females to have spurs.
And again, when we have the bird in the hand after harvest, we can look at it and get a good sense of the age of the bird. So if we look at an adult male with a beard greater than six inches, that same bird will have spurs at least a half an inch, probably more like three-quarters to five-eighths of an inch if it's a two-year-old, and then closer to an inch as a three-year-old bird and so on.
Juvenile males, or jakes, will have just a little nub—less than a half an inch, more like a quarter of an inch.
If we zoom in here, you can see the spurs on the male: very prominent, very distinctive. Don't confuse it with the nails sticking out of the toe. It's different and above the foot, sticking out posterior of the tarsus. Again, these do not exist on nearly all females that you'll see.
It's not something you're going to use in the field when identifying a bird as it's walking around, but once you have that bird in hand after harvest and you've identified that it has a beard, successfully harvested the bird, now we're going to report that harvest.
This is information you'll want to know to say, okay yes, I harvested an adult male, a juvenile male, or a bearded hen.
The tail feather pattern is another useful characteristic we look at. This is primarily an age characteristic. So with adult males, we see this very uniform feather length. Whereas in a juvenile male, the middle tail feathers are a little bit longer than the others—these ones have molted and been replaced more recently.
Here's that same picture I showed before with these two birds in strut. You see this very round, perfectly even tail fan on an adult male bird, and then with the juvenile bird those few, usually three, usually four or six feathers in the middle are longer than the rest.
So that behavior of a bird strutting is a very male characteristic. Here's a juvenile male strutting, here's an adult male strutting, and then here's a hen that's kind of in this half-strut posture. No beard on this hen—just because she's strutting, you might think it's a male bird, but this is not a bird we're going to look to harvest. No beard, not legal during the spring season.
All right, so just some of the license and permit requirements for youths and their mentors who are hunting on youth day. Only one youth may be present with an adult mentor while hunting on youth day.
There are two sets of requirements depending on if you're 15 to 17 years old or 12 to 14 years old.
Starting with 15 to 17-year-olds: they must have a hunting license, so they'll buy a minor hunting license, and they will also purchase a turkey permit or wild turkey permit. That permit provides two tags in the spring, one tag in the fall. After completing the youth turkey seminar and all components, and ensuring hunter ed is completed, the youth will have youth hunt eligibility added.
When you print your turkey permit, it will show up right here. If you're eligible to hunt on youth day, it will say right on your permit: “Youth day eligible.” This only shows up if you've completed the youth turkey training course and hunter ed. The training seminar only has to be completed once.
Now if you're 12 to 14 years old, it's very similar. Once hunter education is completed and the youth training seminar is completed, they can access a youth turkey permit. Hunters between 12 and 14 do not receive a hunting license, just the permit, and they must always be under adult supervision.
This is an example of the two permits. On the left is a permit for a 12 to 14-year-old showing youth day eligible. On the right is a permit for a 15 to 17-year-old hunter also eligible for youth day.
Both permits include two tags. Note that it says “tag void if detached prior to harvest.” Leave your license intact until harvest.
After harvesting a bird, you cut out one tag, fill it out, and attach it to the bird.
Youth day is the Saturday before the last Monday in April. The regular season is four weeks thereafter. Bag limit is two bearded turkeys during spring season. They may be taken the same day or separate days.
Hunting hours on youth day are a half hour before sunrise to 5 p.m. During the regular season, hours are a half hour before sunrise to noon.
It is prohibited to use dogs, bait, electronic calls, or driving turkeys.
Legal equipment includes archery equipment, shotgun, or muzzleloading shotguns. Bows must be at least 40-pound draw and use minimum 7/8-inch steel broadheads. Shotguns must be no larger than 10 gauge.
A hunt safety sticker must be present on all firearms. Ammunition must be shot size number four or smaller.
After harvesting a turkey, you fill out the tag with date and town, attach it to the bird, and report the harvest within 48 hours via MassFishHunt or at a check station.
You will receive a confirmation number, which is written onto the tag and remains with the bird until processed.
That concludes the regulations overview. Please refer to the Massachusetts hunting guide or Mass.gov turkey hunting page for full details.
If you have questions, contact the Westborough field headquarters office. Thank you very much, have a great season, and be safe out there while turkey hunting.