Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

In an attempt to plan my hunting adventures for 2009, I’d like to gather some input for a potential spring turkey trip.
So out of the below listed states do any of you have knowledge of:

Season dates
Overall turkey populations
Accessibility to public lands (decent acreage)
NR license cost
Sunday hunting for turkeys legal?
All day or half day hunting
Quality of trout or smallmouth bass fishing & ability to buy a daily or short term fishing license

MI
IN
KY
VA
WV
MD
NY
TN (northeastern corner)
NC (northern tier)

In case anyone wonders about OH, I’ll already be hunting there.

Thanks for the input.

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

Why not consider new jersey, about the only good hunting we got is turkey and duck hunting. We have a lot of turkeys all over the state. I am way down in south jersey and we have a lot of turkeys. We don't have much trout or smallmouth but largemouth and pickeral are abundant and fun to catch. Just tossing an idea out there for you. Im not sure what the price is for non resident licenses but you can check out the njdep website and they have it on there. Any other questions feel free to PM me if i can be any help.

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

i think you should skip on over another state and check out missouri.:D

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

KY fits those criteria decently.Turkey are literally everywhere, Sunday hunting legal, the farther east inKY you go, the more public land. Not sure on NR license costs, but I don't think any state is cheap anymore.You can hunt all day long.Alabama is charging me $125 for 3 days of hunting.[:'(]Research areas around Cumberland Lake/River if possible. EXCELLENT smallmouth fishing in Lake Cumberland and Dale Hollow Lake, and the trout fishing on the Cumberland River is said to be superb as well. We always catch quite a few when we head up there, with some rainbows topping 5-6# being somewhat common. Ever since the break in Wolf Creek Dam they lowered the river significantly to fix it, which really helped the trout fishing in a way, but also hurt it. Concentrates the fish, but they can be fished out as well.

In fact, me and a friend are possibly talking about doing a 3 day camping trip during turkey season on the Cumberland River ourselves. He has access to a couple hundred acres there that no one bird hunts, and it backs up to the river. We always go up during the summer to catch a mess of trout by wading out at the washout, but this year we are probably going early to see how the turkey action is on that farm. Never been there during the spring, so it could be fruitless. Either way, we should slay the trout.

If you do come to KY and have a tough time getting on birds in the bigger public lands in the east, I could possibly put you on a bird if you drove west to Bowling Green one weekend. I have checkerboard access across a few counties, and each farm is always hit or miss, but I have enough seperate places to go, that there is always 2-3 locations with gobblers movin around. Landownership seems to get hacked up into smaller pieces every year, and having one huge chunk of access is near impossible around here, without showin the green anyway.

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

how about ohio? Here is ur info:www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

No Canada [:o] 8 hours from Punxutwaney PA and he's No Canada [&o][:o]:([8D]

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

North Carolina
Season dates: April 11 – May 9, 2009

Turkey populations: Pretty good population.....cant find the figures right now, but around 2005 we had over 150,000

Accessibility to public lands: Good access to a variety of different game lands. Most are pretty heavily hunted.

NR license cost: As a non resident you have to get two separate licenses. The 6 day licenses will cost $40 each, while the year long licenses will cost $60 each

Sunday hunting: No Sunday hunting this year. Next year we may be able to bowhunt on Sundays.

All day or half day hunting: Hunting is allowed all day

Quality of trout or smallmouth bass fishing & ability to buy a daily or short term fishing license: I do not know about the norther part of the state, but in the western portion there are numerous opportunities for both trout and smallmouth bass fishing. A 10 day license for inland fishing costs $10, and a separate 10 day designated trout waters license is available for another $10.

For more info go to
http://www.ncwildlife.org/

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

Just 85 bucks for a non-res turkey tag up here in NY. Cattaragus, allegheny, and wyoming counties all have a large amount of public land. A lot of big farms by me in wyoming county that all anyone to hunt, so they are pretty much are public.

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

eastern shore maryland half day hunt until noon. out of state 130.00 and alot of public land around here.[:@] www.dnr.maryland.gov. we have good largemouth fishing and a ton of saltwater fishing to go for. and clamming

RE: Turkey friendly states within 8 hrs drive of SW PA
 

I've hunted Northeast Tennessee 5 years now. Non-resident license is $175 for a week or $250 for a year. I'd get the year license if you think you'll be back because this covers all big game- turkeys, deer, bear and boar. If I recall correctly, you're allowed 3 turkeys per season. All day hunting is allowed. Season opens around the end of March or early April. I usually tried to go the week before Ohio season. It's really a crap shoot as far as when to go. I've gone the first week and also towards the end of April. My friends down there have said "Oh, you should have been here last week." or after I come back home "Man, you should have stayed a little longer." Anyway, I know this doesn't help, but I've mostly hunted private property, but I do know that there was TVA land very close to where we were in Grainger County. As far as fishing, we didn't do any of that but there's plenty of lakes and rivers in that area that I'm sure hold plenty of fish. Hope this helps some.