HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023 Spring Turkey Hunting Season Review
2023 Spring Turkey Hun?ng Season Review
By Richard Hoeflinger
The 45-day-long Hawaii Island Spring Turkey Hun?ng Season commenced on
March 1 and closed April 15. It is a tagged hunt, i.e., a purchased turkey tag must
be in possession while hun?ng and said tag must be affixed to any bird taken. A
maximum of (3) non-transferable tags may be purchased seasonally at a cost of $5
each for Hawaii residents and $20 each for non-resident hunters.
The current seasonal hun?ng results compiled from hunter harvest reports
submi?ed at Mauna Kea and Puu Waa Waa are shown in Figure 1, along with
compara?ve values for the preceding 8 years. Seasonal hunter harvest success can
be expressed as the average number of birds taken per hun?ng trip made, or since
that value is frac?onal, as its reciprocal, the average number of hun?ng trips
required to harvest a bird. As indicated in Figure 1, 2023 turkey hunters had an
average harvest success rate of 15 %, or alternately expressed, it took an average
of 6 ½ hun?ng trips to bag a bird.
Figure 1 - Spring Turkey Hunt Data, 2015-2023
Year Birds Taken Hunter Trips Birds/Trip Trips/Bird
2015 51 279 0.18 5.47
2016 47 229 0.21 4.87
2017 43 258 0.17 6.00
2018 42 347 0.12 8.26
2019 35 438 0.08 12.51
2020 55 341 0.16 6.20
2021 41 369 0.11 9.00
2022 44 407 0.11 9.25
2023 54 351 0.15 6.50
Annual variances in turkey hun?ng sta?s?cs are be?er visualized in the graphical
presenta?on of Figure 2, which indicates the 23 % upward ?ck in the number of
birds taken over the previous year, in 14 % fewer hunter trips made. It will be
interes?ng to see if those trends con?nue. As the chart suggests, overall hunter
harvest success has remained rela?vely constant over the period indicated.
My personal experience observing the number of brightly colored Jeep Wagoneer
rental vehicles prowling the mountain and the many unfamiliar names appearing
on the hunter “sign-in” forms, suggested a rela?vely large turnout of off-island
turkey hunters. Sales data indicate 118 resident hunters bought 222 turkey tags,
while 188 tags were purchased by 103 non-residents. Economically, those non-
resident hunters contributed 77 % of the $4,870 total turkey tag sales revenue.
Best not to scratch their shiny cars.