Should We Change Turkey Season?

January 16, 2009

Some of the most controversial proposals being discussed in this years public hearings is to eliminate the youth day and to open the season even earlier that flies in the recommendations the biological staff have made. The fact is our season currently opens two weeks to early as it is set now. To ensure a good flock you want to hunt the gobblers after they have bred the hens not prior to. This is not the first time this proposal has been put forward it seems to come up every year it is time to table this proposal for good. District 5 hearing there was not a single comment made in support of this but many in opposition. From the other hearings I’m being told the opposition from turkey hunters is strong. The N&O’s take on the hearing;

What is sticking in the craw of turkey hunters and turkey biologists are proposals H14 and H15. H14 replaces the traditional Youth Only Wild Turkey Day (youth accompanied by an adult hunter) which has been held a week before the opening of the regular season with a Friends and Family Afield Wild Turkey Day (adult hunter accompanied by anyone) that would be held the first Saturday in April. Shooting hours would end at 1 p.m. that day with a limit of one-bearded (male) bird.

Proposal H15 would open Spring Wild Turkey Season the day after Friends and Family Afield (if the bowhunting-on-Sunday proposals H26 and H27 pass) and would end shooting hours at 1 p.m. the first week. The first week would have a one-tom limit.

Biologists maintain that an earlier start will be detrimental to turkey populations (killing toms before hens are bred and accidental killing hens close to toms), and many hunters agree. Those are the same hunters who see their opening week hunting time cut in half and perhaps vacation days wasted.

Dowd Bruton, a senior regional wildlife biologist with the National Wild Turkey Federation, sent me documents stating that in 2005, 89 percent of hunters commenting at the commission’s public hearings were opposed to an earlier opening. In 2006, the number was 92 percent. In 2007, it was 92.5 percent.

The best thing that could happen is to leave the youth day alone and to protect our young flock by not moving the opening day up. Public comments can be made at a public hearing or online so please speak out.