Spring Turkey-2009

Spring turkey hunters could see options in '09
By Mike Moore
Editor
Thursday, March 27, 2008 9:11 AM CDT
Columbus - Although there's been an ongoing conversation in Ohio conservation circles about extending the spring turkey season, that status quo will remain this year.

That could change in the near future, however.

Dave Risley, the DNR Division of Wildlife's administrator for wildlife research and management, said there is potential for change in 2009. Risley's comments came before the Ohio Wildlife Council on March 5.

Risley said there are three options that might be considered.

The first option is to leave the season as it is with a start date in late April and ending in late May. This year's spring season opens April 21 and runs through May 18.

Another option is to allow hunting until 2 p.m. daily, two hours past the current quitting time of noon. In exchange, the season would be reduced to three weeks instead of four.

The third option that might be considered is a 2 p.m. quit time with a reduction in the individual bag limit to one bird per season. Under this option, the season would still run about a month.

“We still need to look at these things a little closer to see where are our options and what the impacts are,” Risley said.

The deeper thinking on the spring season is at least partially in response to hunters' annual request for a quit time past noon. At the recent open house public forums held by the Division of Wildlife, nearly 40 people logged formal comments suggesting either extending hours to 2 p.m. or in support of all-day spring hunting.

The Ohio Wildlife Council as of late has also weighed in on the spring season. Council member Dominic Marchese in particular has been pushing for extended hours (Ohio Outdoor News, Feb. 1). Marchese, who represents a largely agricultural area in Trumbull County, has said his constituency needs longer hours because many of them work during morning hours.

Given the three options laid out by Risley, a regional director for the National Wild Turkey Federation said his choice would be to leave the season as it is now.

“I don't see where (gaining) two hours in the afternoon is worth losing a week (on the season) or worth giving up a bird in the bag,” said Troy Conley, of Sardinia in southwest Ohio. “With what we've got right now, it looks like the most opportunity that we're going to have.”

Conley said his opinion might change, however, if bird populations and harvests showed dramatic increases over an extended period of time.

“I understand the biology part of it,” he said. “If we would have record years (in terms of hatches and harvests) say three years in a row, then we might want to look at all day (spring turkey hunting). But, I'll leave that to the biologists who study these things.”