Jamie Nesbitt poses with his 24 pound gobbler taken on opening day of Ohio’s turkey season.

By Tom Cross

Jamie Nesbitt of Winchester tagged what might end up being one of the biggest gobblers harvested in the state this year. According to the National Wild Turkey Federation’s record list, Nesbitt’s gobbler would be the 34th largest turkey ever taken in Ohio. Nesbitt’s big gobbler weighed 24 pounds and had an 11-1/4 inch beard with spurs 1-3/4 and 1-1/2 inches long. Nesbitt bagged the gobbler on opening day of Ohio’s turkey season in northern Brown County.

Nesbitt knew his hunting area well having taken a gobbler from the same place last year.

“I set my blind up about 40 yards from the woods edge in a weedy field that turkeys have been visiting regularly,” said Nesbitt. “About 8:00 a.m. a group of gobblers responded to my call; there was five or six bird’s altogether. I could see one gobbler was much bigger then the others and when the bachelor group was close enough and the big tom offered a clear shot I took it. The gobbler was about 45 yards away when I shot and down it went.”  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Winchester hunter tags a record size gobbler.

Paul Brown

Spring’s early arrival makes spotting prey more difficult

By  Dave Golowenski

Good neighbor Jim wasn’t exactly complaining the other day as much as just saying that the gobbler season in Ohio arrives too late for optimum hunting.

This after the guy next door said he’d seen a wild turkey in full fan that very morning in March.

“Yeah, the gobblers are out there strutting,” said Jim, who was standing outside in shirtsleeves, though April was a day away.

Asparagus was shooting up from a row nearby, and a couple of peach trees had bloomed and faded, hopefully pollinated by whatever bees survive pesticidal assault. Nature was tossing freakishly warm, but temperature had little bearing on Jim’s point.

“By the time the season starts, the hens are already on their nests,” he said.

Jim’s suggestion was clear: Callers mimicking hot hens in order to drive amorous turkeys in their direction are about as likely to get the desired results in late April and May as do young men honking their horns in an emptying parking lot at closing time.

Hunter experience notwithstanding, the biologists at the Ohio Division of Wildlife believe they have this figured out.

The length of daylight choreographs the hormonal calypso that awakens wild turkey lust. Thus, the balminess of March and, perhaps, of April isn’t likely to throw Ohio’s 200,000 or so gobblers and hens off their dance steps. The premature sprouting of trees and undergrowth, though, can make hunter and hunted less likely to find each other.

The hunt begins on April 23 and runs through May 20, with the youth season scheduled for April 21-22.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Turkey hunting could be dicey this year | The Columbus Dispatch.

COLUMBUS, OH – The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Wildlife announced that 219,698 deer were taken during Ohio’s 2011-12 hunting season, compared to 239,379 in the 2010-11 season. The top three counties with the highest number of deer taken this season were: Coshocton, Licking and Tuscarawas.

Hunters showed support for the two new methods of game-reporting that were made available this year. Since deer season began on Sept. 24, 2011, 44 percent of hunters called in their numbers, 36 percent reported their numbers online and 20 percent traveled to a license agent’s location to report their game.

Ohio’s first modern day deer-gun season opened in 1943 in three counties, and hunters reported 168 deer. In 1956, deer hunting was allowed in all 88 counties, and hunters harvested 3,911 deer during a one-week season.

The white-tailed deer is the most popular game animal in Ohio and is frequently pursued by generations of hunters. Ohio ranks eighth nationally in annual hunting-related sales and 10th in the number of jobs associated with the hunting-related industry. Each year, hunting has an $859 million economic impact in Ohio through the sale of equipment, fuel, food, lodging and more.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources ensures a balance between wise use and protection of our natural resources for the benefit of all. Visit the ODNR website at www.ohiodnr.com.

By  Dave Golowenski For The Columbus Dispatch

That on occasion hunters and nonhunters die at the hands of hunters is not reported in timely news releases by the Ohio Division of Wildlife. The explanation for that is not entirely clear, though it’s likely decision-makers have never thought of a compelling reason to do so and found a number of reasons, including sensitivity to victims’ families.

Vicki Ervin, the division’s communications manager, said she can’t remember hunting incidents ever being routinely reported. The division issues an annual report, though the 2010 report is not yet complete.

Stories about busted poaching rings still make the wildlife reports, no doubt as cautionary tales aimed at would-be scofflaws, as well as demonstrations that the public’s license and permit money gets results.

Not reported by the division was the untimely death of Nikolas J. Neric, 26, of suburban Cleveland. Neric, who lived in the suburb of Brooklyn, died from a gunshot wound at the Grand River Wildlife Area in Trumbull County on the afternoon of Jan. 10, the final day of the four-day deer muzzleloader season.

Here is what a friend posted last week about Neric on a Web page provided by the funeral home:  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Outdoors: With one careless shot, a life is lost | The Columbus Dispatch.

By ART HOLDEN

Daily Record Outdoor Editor

If you hunt long enough, you’ll come to realize that it’s sometimes better to be lucky, than good.

While luck is often the result of preparation, being in the right place at the right time always trumps hard work.

This is a story of just such circumstances, neighbors in pursuit of the same thing, just different approaches.

It’s a story you can’t make up.

It’s a tale of a late-season muzzleloader hunt that produced the biggest deer of the year, and the best story in a long time.

The details stretch over 8 1/2 years, and also includes a monster buck from yesteryear.

The successful hunter is 72 years old and has just one arm, while the hunting-savvy neighbor comes up empty again.

It all started when I got a call from Bob Yoder this past Monday. He said his neighbor had shot a monster buck down by the Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area refuge. In the conversation, Yoder often mentioned that the buck was similar to the Kaser Buck.

That bruiser was shot in 2003 by then 17-year-old Jeff Kaser. News of that harvest quickly spread, and even Gordon Whittington of North American Whitetail magazine showed up to get a look at the 27-pointer. The deer was scored several times, as high as 244, while the Buckmasters BTC score sheet tapes it out at 229 3/8.

Kaser wound up selling his buck to Cabela’s, and it now sits in the Wheeling, W.Va., store as part of the outdoor chain’s homage to whitetail deer.

After hanging up the phone from Yoder, I went back and revisited the Kaser story that I wrote, and one peculiar point came out of it — a Bob Yoder helped the teenager track down his deer on that late October night in 2003.

So, I called Yoder back, and asked him: “Are you the same Bob Yoder that I wrote about in the Kaser story?”

And thus, the story begins….  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via The-Daily-Record.com – A deer story nearly 9 years in the making: Is this buck from the famed “Kaser Buck’ bloodline? And one hunter’s unlucky fate.

By Jeff Pilger

They may not see a National Championship in Columbus, Ohio anytime soon but one thing is for certain, giant whitetails are going down around this city year after year.  Check out this amazing whitetail taken by Ronnie Stevens.  This deer taken with archery equipment reportedly green scored 189 inches with 11 scoreable points.  It is estimated that this deer may be one of the top 20 Boone and Crockett typicals of all time. One thing is for sure,  he will not be trading those antlers for tattoos anytime soon.  This story was first reported by Field and Stream.

Adams County sportsmen lose over 3,600 acres of public hunting

Tom Cross

The People’s Defender

In a loss felt around Ohio, the Ohio Division of Wildlife and Scioto Land Company, formally Mead/Westvaco, couldn’t come to terms for the almost 40,000 acres of public hunting land in southeast Ohio.

According to Jim Hill, ODNR Wildlife Management Supervisor in Southeast Ohio, it came down to Scioto Land Company wanting to be paid for the property to remain open for public hunting.

Affecting Adams County sportsmen are the three tracts of scrub forestland off Beech Fork and Mineral Springs Road containing 3,621 acres; almost as large as the Tranquility Wildlife Area near Peebles. Tract #667, known as the Peach Mountain tract, located on Mineral Springs Road was 992 acres, while tract #665 and #553 located along Beech Fork Road was a combined 2,629 acres. The loss also includes a special Ruffed Grouse Society grouse habitat management area located at tract #665.

Back in the heydays of the 70′s and 80′s when it was Mead Paper Company property, those three tracts in Adams and Scioto County were considered some of the finest grouse and turkey hunting areas in southern Ohio.

For over 40 years Mead Paper Company had permitted public hunting on nearly all their Ohio holdings which amounted to nearly 150,000 acres in southeast Ohio.

“We didn’t even discuss price,” said Mark Hemming, Division of Wildlife District 4 Supervisor in Athens. “The Division of Wildlife is in agreement with numerous property owners and we can’t enter into a lease agreement without it affecting our agreements with other large property owners such as AEP and the various coal companies which allow public hunting. With Scioto Land Company it was a matter of their share holders wanting a return on their investments, so they opted to lease the properties.”

In December of 2005 Scioto Land Company based out of Columbus purchased the Mead properties in Ohio and in 2006 reached a five year agreement with the Division of Wildlife on 43,000 acres for public hunting. Locally that agreement again opened the Beech Fork and Mineral Springs properties in Adams County to public hunting which had been previously leased to private concerns by the old Mead/Westvaco Company. Prior to that, the land was basically a Mead Public Hunting Area for almost 30 years.

Adams County still has numerous public hunting areas with Shawnee and Brush Creek State Forest and 4,254 acre Tranquility Wildlife Area. However the loss of over 3,600 acres is significant for Adams County public hunting opportunities.

via Hunting land curtailed.

By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

Monday, the opener of Ohio’s 2011 spring wild turkey hunting season, hunters missed the bull’s-eye by a wide margin.

In all, Monday’s 70,000-strong turkey-hunting clan shot 2,646 birds. That figure is a decline of 20 percent from the 2010 opening-day spring turkey kill, said Mike Reynolds, the Ohio Division of Wildlife wild turkey biologist.

“I think there are some pretty clear indicators when you look at the various counties,” Reynolds said.

For instance, in Ashtabula County, the opening-day kill was off 52 percent, while Trumbull County was down 45 percent.

“Geauga County wasn’t too bad, though — down just 19 percent, while Lake County was down 31 percent,” Reynolds said. “In general, Northeast Ohio didn’t have a very good season opener due to the poor weather.”

That was not true for all counties. Athens County saw an opening-day kill similar to that of 2010 with 69 turkeys. And counties in North Central to Northwest Ohio also posted reasonably good numbers, according to Reynolds.

Reynolds credited the largely pleasant weather in those areas on Monday for at least some of the success.

“It’s only one day, though, and we’ll get a more clear picture later on,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds added some glitches in the new check-in system were encountered, among them being an occasional double login of a harvest.

“All in all, though, things seem to be working pretty well,” he said.

As for the impact the ongoing rainy, cold weather may have on poult production, that is probably minimal — at least for now.

“There are hens laying right now, but it’s too soon to say. It’s quite common for hen turkeys to re-nest,” he said.

Ohio’s turkey flock is estimated at about 200,000, of which about 75,000 are males.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Outdoors: Ohio’s turkey hunters fare poorly on opening day – news-herald.com.

Written by

Dick Martin

Take a survey of the favorite fish sought by Buckeye anglers, and you’ll find a close competition between Lake Erie walleye and perch and inland largemouth bass and bluegill.

Crappie won’t rank high, but their ranking is deceptive because when spring rolls around, thousands of anglers stop their casting for serious game fish, and turn to this little silver-sided panster — and that includes people who rarely fish.

Why does this flat-sided little fish have such popularity?

That’s hard to say. Maybe it’s that they’re an unusually picturesque fish, black and silver with sleek lines, or that it takes so little to catch them, usually a float, splitshot, No. 6 hook, and a minnow.

One thing has to be a factor, that they’re delicious eating, so good that arguments over which is best, crappie, bluegill, yellow perch, or walleye can last for hours. It adds up to lots of reasons to try them during spring fishing.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Outdoors: Good crappie fishing just steps away | Mansfield News Journal | mansfieldnewsjournal.com.

By Jeffrey L. FrischkornJFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

Though the figures are a little different from what was reported late last month, the net result is the same. More Ohio deer managed to give hunters the slip last year than during the various combined 2009-2010 deer hunting seasons.The difference between the set of previous figures and these official figures is one of statistical gathering. Last year was the final time the Ohio Division of Wildlife issued preliminary deer kill results.Beginning with this season, the agency will have the ability to issue near real-time kill figures due to the establishment of the new $16 million online license-issuing and animal check-in process.Last month, the state could only give results based on where the deer were checked in and not necessarily where they were actually taken. The latter detail required hand-checking and sorting, which took additional time. Regardless, the number of deer killed by Ohio’s approximately 400,000 white-tail hunters stood at 239,260 deer, down from the official 2009-2010 all-seasons total of 261,260.Counties reporting the highest number of deer checked during the season were Coshocton 8,837, Tuscarawas 8,164, Licking 7,819, Muskingum 7,130, Guernsey 6,990, Harrison 6,965, Knox 6,335, Carroll 5,721, Holmes 5,635 and Ashtabula 5,333.Ohio’s first modern deer-gun season opened in 1943 in three counties where hunters killed 168 deer. In 1956, deer hunting was allowed in all 88 counties, and hunters killed 3,911 deer during a one-week season. Now such a total figure wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow as to being a top deer hunting county.A statewide hearing on all the proposed 2011-2012 rules will be held on March 10 at 9 a.m. at the Division of Wildlife’s District One office, which is located at 1500 Dublin Road in Columbus. After considering public input, the eight-member Ohio Wildlife Council will vote on the proposed rules and season dates during its April 6 meeting.However, there is virtually no change in the regulations — which are complicated in their own right — between the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 respective sets of deer-hunting rules.The best hunters can do is lobby for changes to the 2012-2013 deer hunting regulations, often a lengthy process with the Wildlife Division and its equally cautious Wildlife Council.  Click Link Below For Full Story!

via Outdoors: No improvement with deer harvest numbers – news-herald.com.