During the process a confirmation number will be provided, which must then be recorded on the harvest tag. The tag is affixed to the bird immediately following the kill.

The state's 2008 season will run from April 18 to May 23. Hunting hours are one half-hour before sunrise until noon. Only bearded birds are legal game. The daily bag limit is one, with a season limit of two.

If a hunter took a bearded bird during the previous fall season (a fall season occurs in the three western Maryland counties), then the season limit for the spring hunt is one bird.

A junior hunt for those 16 and younger will be held on April 12. See your current Guide to Hunting and Trapping Regulations for details. During last year's junior hunt, 102 birds were harvested, down from the 168 taken the previous year.

NEW JERSEY
The outlook for Garden State hunters is a similar to Maryland's. Gobbler seekers can expect to find good numbers of jakes, along with enough mature toms to keep things interesting. This year's better-than-average number of jakes will translate into fine hunting for the vocal 2-year-olds next spring.

Last year, New Jersey's spring turkey hunt ran from April 14 (the Youth Hunt day) to Friday, May 25. A total of 3,061 jakes and gobblers were taken, which is the sixth-highest harvest in state history. The Youth Day hunt accounted for 154 birds.

The overall record harvest occurred in 2002, when 3,779 turkeys were bagged. The state has conducted a spring hunt since 1981.

According to the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), the 2007 harvest reflected an 11 percent decrease from the 2006 hunt.

This correlates with poor turkey productivity during the prior two years. Heavy rains and poor weather made hunting difficult during the opening week of the hunting season.

But hunters made up for it during the later part of the season. At the beginning of the season, hunters experienced a 28 percent reduction in numbers taken from the prior year. But these birds were still available later on, and hunters made up lost opportunities. Jakes made up a relatively low percentage of the harvest -- as expected, due to the poor reproduction of late.

New Jersey's turkey population is managed by way of 22 separate turkey-hunting areas (THAs). In general, the state's best turkey-hunting opportunities lie in the southern part of the state. Recent harvest numbers illustrate this. The highest harvest occurred in THA 20, which encompasses portions of Cumberland and Salem counties. A total of 16 percent of this area is public land.