Tense moments passed as two big toms inched forward, slowly closing the distance on our blind.
Despite several close encounters, my hunting partner and I had been frustrated all morning. Now, with the clock ticking precariously close to the mandatory noon cessation, the hunting day, and quite possibly the entire season, was on the line.
Boom! My accomplice’s gun roared and one tom toppled. I glanced at my watch: 11:55. Phew, that was cutting it close!
My son, Ben, and I were hunting on Maine’s youth day. With the five-week regular season still ahead, you wouldn’t think there would be that much pressure, but there was. I’d have another 30 days to hunt. Ben wouldn’t. If he was like most school-age kids, he’d be lucky to get two or maybe three more chances to hunt the entire spring, which meant every minute of every day was critical.
That’s a lot of pressure, especially for a kid, and it sort of takes away some of the fun. If only there were some way to provide kids with more opportunity to hunt spring turkeys.
In fact, there is. Yes, folks, it’s time once again for my annual plea for all-day spring turkey hunting. At last check, 34 states and three provinces allowed it. Standing starkly opposite most of the turkey hunting world is the “progressive” Northeast, where hunting halts and high noon, for reasons that are largely outdated and unfounded.
WHY HALF DAYS?
After years of turkey restoration programs, Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states re-opened spring turkey hunting seasons with conservative season lengths, permit allocations and bag limits to protect toms from over-harvest.
Some also established mid-morning to noon closures, thinking this would protect nesting hens by reducing disturbance.
“The theory was that hens were more apt to move around, be flushed or mistaken for gobblers and illegally shot later in the day, which has not proven to be the case in states where all-day hunting has been in place for many years,” said James Earl Kennamer, chief conservation officer with the National Wild Turkey Federation.
So half-day hunting isn’t necessary to protect hens, but what about toms? According to NWTF biologist Bob Eriksen, only between 10 and 25 percent of the total kill comes from afternoon hunting in states that allow all-day hunting.
Furthermore, as a national average, only about 20 percent of spring hunters use the afternoon. Last year, Ohio instituted all-day hunting for the last two weeks of their four-week season. Afternoon hunting accounted for a whopping 8 percent of the total spring gobbler kill. Meanwhile, Maine doubled its daily bag limit on gobblers. Clearly the biologists are not concerned about over-exploitation on that segment of the population.
Some local opponents of all-day hunting have expressed concern about how landowners will react to increased hunting time. If they allow turkey hunting in the spring, they probably allow deer and upland game hunting in the fall, all of which can occur all day. They’re used to it.
Furthermore, the most common complaint biologists hear from landowners these days is, “Why don’t you do something about all these darned turkeys?”
Meanwhile, many of the all-day turkey hunting opponents are the same folks calling for year-round night hunting of coyotes to protect the deer.
GAINS
Having dispelled the cons of all-day hunting, we can move on to the pros, which are numerous and significant. First and foremost, we’d gain more hunting time.
Our Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is constantly looking for ways to increase hunting opportunities as a way to give hunters more bang for their ever more thinly-stretched license dollars. Adding roughly eight more hours of potential hunting time every day would be a giant and very nice step in that direction.
Perhaps more important is what segment of the hunting population that increased opportunity most affects: kids.
Right now, the spring turkey season for kids is effectively limited to youth day plus five Saturdays. Factor in spring sports, sleepovers, fishing trips, family vacations and whatever else, and you’ll be lucky if you can get your kid in the woods more than two or three times over the entire course of a turkey season.
You won’t get too many kids fired up over that, and it won’t long hold the interest of those who are.
You could try to sneak them out before school a couple mornings during the week, but that’s not a really good idea. It makes for an overtired kid in school. In fact, recent research found that most school-age kids don’t get enough sleep as it is and that the typical 7:30 or 8 a.m. start to the school day is too early.
All-day hunting opens up the entire five weeks. This not only provides much more opportunity but also allows you to pick your days, taking much of the pressure off competing interests. And it affords grown-up day-shift workers a whole bunch more time to hunt.
We’re losing hunters, and all-day spring turkey hunting would be a great way to retain more adults and recruit more youths, while potentially putting more money in the state coffers.
For the last decade or so my pleas have fallen on deaf ears, so I’ll default to Kennamer, who says: “Considering declining hunter numbers, if there is no biological evidence suggesting negative impacts from expanding the daily hunting hours, it may be time for serious consideration of the issue by those states still providing half-day hunting opportunities.”
Bob Humphrey is a freelance writer and registered Maine Guide who lives in Pownal. He can be contacted at:
bhhunt@maine.rr.com
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