Outdoors

TURKEY HUNTERS FARE WELL IN SPRING

Still, birds proved hard to scare up in last week of season

Published: Sunday, May 28, 2006

SPORTS 17F

By Dave Golowenski

FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Turkey guide Kevin Corry, who until recently stalked gobblers on private haunts in Guernsey, Noble and Muskingum counties, walked away from the 2006 spring turkey season with a bit of a swagger.

"It was a good year," he said. "I was in the field for 21 days, and we had 16 attempts at birds, meaning there were only five days we didn't connect on a bird."

Corry's clients, who came from as far as Florida and Illinois to hunt Buckeye State birds, bagged 13, including five adult toms and eight juvenile jakes. The toll could have been higher, but the Floridian, looking to match an Eastern wild turkey mount with his home Osceola birds, passed on three different opportunities at jakes.

While the abundance of young birds bodes well for the fall and for the 2007 spring hunt, Corry said, the lateness of Ohio's four-week season, which ended last Sunday, forced him to quit a full week before the official close.

By the end of the third week, in fact, the birds "really tightened down," he said.

Areas that earlier had provided a chorus of gobbling, which is an integral part of the birds' courting, went all but quiet, effectively ending hunters' chances to call in birds looking for a tryst among the trees. In short, the birds, having for the most part taken care of business, lost interest in calling days before the season ended.

Corry, a Columbus-area resident whose WackumandStackum Guide Service books duck, goose and turkey hunts, said he wonders why Ohio has not gone to a split season for the spring turkey hunt. He pointed out that the arrival of vegetative spring in southern counties typically comes weeks before it does in northern counties.

Dave Swanson, a biologist and the turkey project leader for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, said having an earlier season in the southern counties and a later one in northern counties would have little effect on hunting because turkeys in the state all nest at about the same time.

"Turkeys respond to day length. That's what gets their hormones flowing and puts them in the nesting mood," he said.

Thus, even though Lawrence County's trees are far ahead on the leafing schedule from those in Ashtabula County, the turkeys pay no mind that trees are bare or otherwise when it comes for procreating.

Ohio actually has moved its spring turkey season up a bit in many years, with the start of the season on the fourth Monday in April for years. Currently, the hunt begins on the Monday closest to April 21. This year, the start was April 24, making it unusually late. Some years, depending on the calendar's cycle, the season will begin as much as a week earlier.

Starting the season too early, Swanson said, puts females at risk. Until the hens are on the nest and no longer looking for Romeo, they are susceptible to be accidentally or mistakenly shot. The future depends on the survival of females, so any regulations must balance what's best for the birds with the desires of hunters.

Seasons, therefore, are set with the goal of "maximizing hunter opportunity (while) minimizing harm to hens," Swanson said.

This year, the preliminary harvest numbers indicate most interests were served. Hunters checked 18,262 wild turkeys during the four-week season, a 4 percent increase from 17,542 taken a year ago. Toss in the 1,872 birds taken during the special youth hunt April 22-23 and the harvest total climbed to more than 20,000 for the first time in several years.

Ashtabula reclaimed the top spot among Ohio's 88 counties with 782 birds checked, a distinct climb from the 2005 total of 559. Next was Guernsey with 661, up from 553, followed by Harrison, 625 (606); Meigs, 612 (534); Tuscarawas, 570 (478); Athens, 566 (545); Coshocton, 551 (599) and Washington, 517 (501).

Among central Ohio counties, Licking led with 310 checked, down from 357 last year. Fairfield counted 153 birds, down from 160, followed by Pickaway, 57 (71); Delaware, 54 (51); Union, 23 (16); Franklin, 18 (13) and Madison, 3 (5).

Most of the hatching takes place in late May and early June, Swanson said. Warm, dry weather during the period helps the survival rate of the young birds, called poults.

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