NWTF Efforts Featured in April Issue of Outdoor Life
March 25, 2010
EDGEFIELD, S.C.— The hard work of volunteers with the National Wild Turkey Federation is highlighted in a new article about growing wild turkey populations and the increasing popularity of turkey hunting in the West.
In the April issue of Outdoor Life, Hunting Editor Andrew McKean recalls a recent trip to hunt “elk-country turkeys” in the mountains of Idaho. The hunt took place in a state that sold around 5,000 permits to hunt turkeys as recently as 1994. In 2009, the number of turkey permits sold had exploded to nearly 60,000.
In the article, McKean notes that turkey hunting is gaining popularity in a region known more for big game such as elk and mule deer.
“Much of the credit goes to the NWTF…,” wrote McKean. “What is clear is that through its fundraising dinners, the NWTF has been instrumental in growing both its membership and its investment in wildlife habitat over the last two decades.”
The number of NWTF members in the West has risen from only 2,212 in 1990, to more than 25,000 in 2009. Almost $53 million has been raised and spent by the NWTF and its state agency partners in 17 Western states. The money has been used to improve habitat for wildlife, fund wildlife research and pay for wild turkey population restoration efforts.
“This is great recognition of all the hard work that NWTF volunteers and staff have put into building turkey populations in the West,” said Brent Lawrence, NWTF public relations and Web director. “We're excited that an outstanding national publication like Outdoor Life noticed our efforts.”
Founded in 1973, the NWTF is dedicated to the conservation of the wild turkey and the preservation of our hunting heritage. Through dynamic partnerships with state, federal and provincial wildlife agencies, the NWTF and its members have helped restore wild turkey populations across the country, spending more than $306 million to conserve 14 million acres of habitat for all types of wildlife.
via Press Releases.
Tenn. Turkey Season Kicks Off With Kids Only – Chattanoogan.com
March 25, 2010
The statewide young sportsman hunt March 27-28 will launch the spring turkey hunting season in Tennessee. The regular season will begin the next week, Saturday April 3 and will continue through Sunday, May 16.The young sportsman hunt is growing in popularity and several special hunting events are scattered across the state this weekend.The young sportsman hunt is available for youngsters ages 6-16. One bearded turkey which counts toward the statewide bag limit of four bearded turkeys may be harvested unless taken on a Wildlife Management Area WMA where turkeys are designated as bonus birds. Each youth must be accompanied by a nonhunting adult 21 or older who must remain in position to take immediate control of the hunting device. The adult does not have to be licensed and may call turkeys for the youth.This spring, the young sportsmen will be out to surpass last year’s mark of 1,066 turkeys harvested during the statewide young sportsman hunt. The top 10 counties for harvest during the 2009 statewide young sportsman hunt were Greene 39, Giles 37, Dickson and Weakley 31, Montgomery 29, Cheatham 28, Robertson 27 Hardin and Hickman 26, and Rutherford 25.The young sportsmen must possess the appropriate license and permits to participate. Sportsmen 10 or older must possess proof of successfully completing the Tennessee Hunter Education course. If a sportsman 10 or older has not completed the course, a one-time apprentice hunting permit may be purchased that exempts the hunter education provision for one year from the date of purchase.
via 3/25/2010 – Tenn. Turkey Season Kicks Off With Kids Only – Outdoors – Chattanoogan.com.
2010 Kentucky Turkey Forecast – KY Game and Fish
March 25, 2010
By Travis J. Faulkner
It was pure torture driving to work during the second week of the Kentucky spring turkey season. The songbirds were singing at least an hour before daylight that morning and there was no doubt the turkeys would be gobbling their beaks off. I caught myself at least a half dozen times glancing off the road at the distant fields trying to spot a fired-up longbeard in full strut after daylight.
Then, just before my exit, something happened that hit me in the gut like a runaway truck. A redheaded gobbler was puffed out like a helium balloon trying to impress at least three different hens. I guess making enough money to cover my house and truck payments were about the only thing that kept me from making an illegal U-turn that morning. Without question, spring turkey hunting has completely changed my life in the Bluegrass State.
It’s just about impossible anymore to find an area in our state that is not covered up with wild turkeys. The reintroduction-stocking program of this magnificent game bird has to be one of the biggest success stories of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resource Agency (KDFWR). The exceedingly high numbers of turkeys that are thriving across the Commonwealth have played a pivotal role in promoting the sport of turkey hunting.
In fact, more and more hardcore turkey hunters are hitting the spring forests every season. Furthermore, a large percentage of these hunters are consistently seeing and even tagging gobblers during these hunts. Over the past several years, turkey hunting in Kentucky has rapidly evolved from a weekend pastime to a way of life throughout the month of April. Click Link Below for full story!
via 2010 Turkey Forecast.
Nine People Charged with Illegally Importing, Possessing or Selling Live Wild Turkeys
June 2, 2009
Frankfort, Ky. – Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife conservation officers served summonses today on nine people, seized 15 wild turkeys and 25 wild turkey eggs persons following an eight-month, multi-state investigation which resulted in 421 criminal charges of illegally importing, possessing or selling wild turkeys in Kentucky.
Officers obtained summonses in 11 counties spanning the state from Calloway in far western Kentucky to Pike in far eastern Kentucky. The investigation, termed Operation Toxic Turkey, documented 167 live wild turkeys illegally imported into Kentucky, including eastern and Rio Grande wild turkeys acquired from a New Mexico hatchery.
It is illegal for the general public to possess a live wild turkey in Kentucky, and a wildlife transportation permit issued by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife is required of anyone bringing wildlife into the state.
Investigators were first alerted to possible illegal trafficking in wild turkeys last August, when they heard a broadcast on a Bardstown radio station advertising live eastern wild turkeys for sale. The investigation that followed quickly expanded beyond state lines and turned up similar violations in at least 13 additional states.
New Mexico Department of Fish and Game officers helped trace the eastern and Rio Grande turkeys purchased and imported into Kentucky from Privett Hatchery in Portales, New Mexico. Purchase and shipping records obtained by investigators led to the charges and summonses. The hatchery has a permit to legally sell turkeys.
Those charged include Stanley Hurst, 28, Bardstown, 168 counts of importing, possessing or selling wild turkeys. Others include Margaret Hamilton, 36, Pikeville; Allan Chaney, 45, Irvine; John Hester, 23, Henderson; and Thomas Murdock, 51, Murray, each charged with 30 counts of importing and possessing wild turkeys. Additional charges of importing or possessing wild turkeys were placed against Jeremy Ginn, 32, Mt. Sterling, 40 counts; Caroline Cox, 50, Turners Station, 20 counts; Elizabeth Patrick, 41, Cave City, 14 counts; and Julie Saling, 26, Bowling Green, two counts.
Wildlife biologists say importing wild turkeys into Kentucky puts the state’s native wild turkeys at risk of contracting diseases for which they’ve developed no natural immunities.
“There are many biological concerns when releasing captive-raised poultry into the wild,” said Steven Dobey, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife’s turkey program coordinator. “The potential for transmission of diseases and non-native parasites is increased due to their captive origin.”
Kentucky’s wild turkey flock ranks among the nation’s top wildlife restoration successes. Statewide wild turkey numbers were estimated at fewer than 900 birds in the mid 1950s, and nearly all of those resided in west Kentucky’s Golden Pond area, now Land Between the Lakes.
The department embarked on an aggressive restoration effort in the 1980s, and today’s flock has rebounded to number about a quarter of a million birds. Gobbling can be heard in every Kentucky county and hunters enjoy liberal bag limits statewide.
“In our generation, wild turkey numbers have grown from fewer than 1,000 to well over 200,000 birds in Kentucky,” said Dobey. “Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has worked diligently toward these restoration efforts, and I am positive the sportsmen and sportswomen of Kentucky want nothing to threaten this success.”
“The wild turkey has become a major component of Kentucky’s tourism industry,” said Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Jon Gassett. “The wild turkey’s economic impact annually in Kentucky is almost $230 million, and almost 2,200 jobs depend on it.
“It is critical that we not inadvertently introduce disease into our flock,” he continued. “That could be catastrophic.”
Tompkins: Turkeys in Texas, Kentucky tale of two states | Outdoors | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle
May 25, 2009
By SHANNON TOMPKINS Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Shannon Tompkins Houston Chronicle
An abundance of insect-rich openings carpeted with native grasses is crucial to survival of turkey poults. A lack of this “brood habitat” is one of many factors limiting East Texas’ eastern turkey population.
On a cool late-April morning, in a beautiful creek bottom carpeted with glistening trillium and wild violets and crackling alive with singing warblers and cawing crows, I scratched out a series of yelps on a slate call, and three wild turkey gobblers thundered back.
Minutes later, a huge black gobbler warily strode through the open understory beneath the oak and hickory forest and into an acre-sized opening nearly knee-high with native grasses.
The big bird spotted the hen decoys, gathered himself and threw everything he had into a ground-shaking gobble. His paintbrush-thick beard danced on his chest as his body convulsed.
Hidden in a thick clump of cane, I smiled behind my camouflage mask and drank it in. Finally, after all these years, I had accomplished a personal goal: calling a long-bearded eastern turkey gobbler within gun range in country where my ancestors once hunted these same birds.
While the sense of connecting with family history and tradition were real and gratifying, a twinge of melancholy colored the moment.
I’d always hoped this meeting with an eastern gobbler on “home” ground would occur in East Texas, where my family has lived for nearly 200 years.
But after years of failure and frustration trying to find an eastern gobbler in East Texas, it took a trip to Kentucky — the region my ancestors left when they came to Texas in the 1820s — to accomplish that goal.
Kentucky is awash in eastern subspecies wild turkeys. Estimates are the Bluegrass State holds almost a quarter-million wild turkeys, and the birds are found in each of the state’s 120 counties. Each spring turkey season, about 80,000 Kentucky turkey hunters take 25,000 or more birds.
Optimistic estimates place Texas’ eastern turkey population at 10,000 birds. Annual turkey harvest in the 43 East Texas counties that have a spring season has hovered between 250-400 birds this decade, most often closer to 250. And a third or more of those gobblers are taken from just two counties in the far northeast corner of the state. In some East Texas counties open to spring turkey hunting, not a single bird is reported taken during the spring season.
The disparity between eastern turkey populations in Kentucky and Texas is stunning when you consider that, 30 years ago, both held almost none of the birds.
Both saw native populations of eastern turkeys evaporate in the early 1900s, victims of unregulated hunting and, in Texas, extensive loss of habitat. Click Link Below for Full Story!
via Tompkins: Turkeys in Texas, Kentucky tale of two states | Outdoors | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources – Hunters Take Record Number of Spring Turkeys
May 25, 2009
Frankfort, KY – Kentucky’s spring turkey hunters set a new state record this year. Hunters telechecked 29,006 birds during the 23-day season, which ended May 10. This surpassed the previous record of 28,797 birds in 2006.
“Despite the bad weather, turkey hunters are dedicated sportsmen and sportswomen,” said Karen Alexy, wildlife division director for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “They still got out there and made this the best season ever.”
Last summer, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife biologists recorded the highest number of poults, or turkey chicks, ever reported in the 25-year history of the department’s annual brood survey. This record turkey reproduction provided plenty of birds for hunters.
“We had more birds on the ground than probably at any time in modern history,” said Steven Dobey, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife’s turkey program coordinator. “Interest in turkey hunting continues to grow. That, combined with the record number of turkeys on the ground, resulted in a phenomenal season.”
Turkeys should produce another strong crop this year. Since only bearded turkeys are legal for harvest during the spring season, female birds were essentially protected and can now build on last year’s reproductive success.
“By early fall, we’ll have a post-harvest estimate of what the population looks like,” said Dobey. “I expect it to be great – those hens made it through the spring season and are nested now.”
Additionally, birds hatched in 2008 will be adult two-year-olds by next year’s spring turkey season. With a little help from nature, hunters should be in for another great harvest in 2010
via Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources – Hunters Take Record Number of Spring Turkeys.
Hunting royalty: O’Fallon hunter bags all 5 North American varieties of turkey – Outdoors – Belleville News-Democrat
May 18, 2009
BY ROD KLOECKNER – News-Democrat
Steve Boente, left, of O'Fallon and William 'Slim' Boente, of Shiloh, pose after harvesting turkeys in the Sahara mountains of Mexico. They were hunting above 7,000 feet. - Provided to BND
William “Slim” Boente and several of his buddies are considered royalty in the turkey hunting world.
Boente, a 42-year-old construction worker from O’Fallon, recently completed the Royal Slam of turkey hunting: shooting all five species of wild turkey — the Eastern, Rio Grande, Merriam’s, Osceola and Gould’s — common to North America.
Boente and four of his turkey hunting buddies traveled to Chihuahua, Mexico, during the last week of April to hunt the Gould’s bird, the fifth leg of the Royal Slam. Boente; his brother, Steve Boente, of O’Fallon; and Joseph Wrigley, of Collinsville, all completed the Royal Slam.
“It’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing, and to get the opportunity and run with a group of guys like that and do it all together, especially with my brother, is special to me,” Slim Boente said. “I probably only know of six or eight guys that have gotten a Royal Slam.”
According to the National Wild Turkey Federation’s records database, the trio are the 11th, 12th and 13th Illinois hunters to complete the Royal Slam. Three other area hunters — John Brown (Chester), Mark Allen Carr (Greenville) and Mark Mueller (Mascoutah) — also have Royal Slams to their credit. Click below for full story!
Spring turkey hunt looks like a big one | The Courier-Journal
April 13, 2009
By Gary Garth • Special to The Courier-Journal • April 12, 2009
Wild turkeys remain largely a mystery to both the people who hunt them and the wildlife workers who try to manage them.
Gobblers have a marble-size brain and apparently no natural curiosity. They can appear arrogant, ignorant, fretful, focused, frightened and oblivious, all at the same time.
They are large, clumsy birds that can barely fly, spend most of their lives on the ground, run with an awkward, almost comical gait, can vanish in an instant and can duck a shotgun blast from 20 yards.
Kentucky wildlife officials are unsure how many turkey hunters are in the state, and they also are largely guessing about the number of turkeys.
Last year the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources sold about 17,000 resident turkey permits and another 5,300 nonresident permits. But nearly 40,000 hunters bought a sportsman’s license, which includes a turkey permit. Factor in license-exempt landowners and tenants, and the number of gobbler hunters probably spikes to around 80,000.
“I’d be comfortable with an estimate of our turkey hunters between 75,000 and 85,000,” said state turkey specialist Steven Dobey. He puts bird numbers “probably somewhere between 215,000 and 225,000,” a large percentage of which are 1 and 2 years old.
Regardless of the precise number of turkeys or hunters, the woods will be packed with both when the spring season opens Saturday. The opportunity to bag one has never been better. Click Link Below for Full Story!
via Spring turkey hunt looks like a big one | courier-journal.com | The Courier-Journal.
A Successful Turkey Hunting Season
April 9, 2009
By Joel Walters
Last season was one of my most successful years turkey hunting, and not for the reasons you may think. Last season was my first year of marriage and I was able to take my wife with me on opening morning. She is not a hunter and nor does anyone in her family hunt, so this was a whole new world of experience for her. I was very proud of her for taking an interest in something that is so important to me; however I do believe her favorite portion of the season was getting to go shopping–even if the shopping was only for a new Mossy Oak outfit for her to wear.
Opening morning was crisp and sunny. We walked out a ridge from my cousin’s house that had been mowed for hay. The ridge winds it way for about 800 yards and then ends in a tree line where the neighbor’s property begins. For her first hunt, I wanted my wife to be as comfortable as possible. For this reason I decided to use a ground blind and set it in a likely strutting spot in the hayfield along the woods. This would give us ample room and a comfortable chair to sit in while we waited for turkeys to visit. I set up my strutting decoy at the top of the ridge facing away from the woods and placed a hen in the breeding position a few yards away. A few yards farther away I placed a feeding hen decoy. My blind was positioned with my back to the woods facing toward the decoys in the hayfield which rolls gently downhill to our right until it hits another tree line that starts a 25 acre patch of woods leading down the hill from us. The hayfield is a favorite strutting area for toms because it is hidden from view from the longer expanse of open ground but is clearly visible by turkeys in the woods.
We got situated in our chairs and we could already hear a few gobbles behind us and below and to our right in the woods. I picked up my Cane Creek glass call and gave a few tree yelps. We immediately got a response that cut off my call so we decided to sit and not call for awhile. As the light began to shine in the hayfield in front of us, we heard a few birds pitching down in the distance. I gave my wife my hat, and while I let loose a fly down cackle with my call she beat the hat against her leg to mimic a bird flying down from a nearby tree.
For the next few minutes I made a series of clucks, yelps, and purrs on a Sla-Tek surface friction call by Knight and Hale. We heard a few gobbles behind us in the woods that seemed about 150-200 yards away. My wife had been hearing me practice my calls for weeks now and would soon show me that she had a pretty good idea of how to call in that gobbler. The year before at her parents house in Pennsylvania, while sitting on their front porch, she had yelped with her natural voice and called in a whole flock of birds to within a few dozen yards of the house. She has an innate ear for a good turkey sound, so when she told me to switch to another call I quickly switched over to my small slate call. As soon as I gave a few yelps, the gobbler reacted and seemed to close the distance. As I began to do a few soft clucks and purrs I could see out of the right window of the blind the blue head of a gobbler strutting at the edge of the woods.
Carefully I set down my calls and with a whisper told my wife to hold her ears. I stuck the barrel of my shotgun out the window, drew a bead, and fired. Disaster was avoided as I almost, but not quite, ejected the spent shell into my wife’s face. We quickly exited the blind to grab our harvest.
From start to finish, our hunt had lasted maybe 35 minutes. Never had I had such an easy time in the woods. I told my wife that turkey hunting is very seldom so much of a foregone conclusion, but I don’t think she fully believed me. As I start to prepare for the upcoming ‘09 season opener, I am hoping that the itch will strike her as well so that she might buy a tag for herself. Hopefully she will at least go along with me so that some of her good luck will rub off again this year.
Kentucky Afield Outdoors: Best Turkey Reproduction on Record Means Exciting Spring Season
March 29, 2009
Frankfort, Ky. – Turkey hunters are about to reap the rewards of the best turkey reproduction on record.
“Last year was the highest number of poults ever recorded in the 25-year history of our turkey brood survey,” said Steven Dobey, turkey program coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “There are probably more turkeys on the ground now than at any time in recent history.”
Dobey estimates the statewide turkey flock at 220,000 birds. Hunters can match their wits with those wild turkeys soon, with the upcoming youth-only season April 4-5, and the general spring turkey season April 18 – May 10.
“We’ll have a lot of jakes on the ground this year. There will be a lot of opportunity to see a lot of birds, which makes for an exciting hunt,” Dobey said. “However, patience will pay off if you want to go after an older tom.”
Turkey numbers remain high even after January’s devastating ice storm. The resulting ice cover didn’t last long enough to impact turkey populations.
“The damaging part of ice storms, for turkeys, is that it physically prevents birds from feeding,” explained Dobey. “That period of ice cover, while it seemed long to us, from a wildlife perspective probably wasn’t long enough to cause an impact on survival.”
Last fall’s mast (nut) crop, moderate in some areas and good in others, may impact where hunters find birds this spring. In areas where trees produced a lot of acorns, hunters should target the woods where nuts can still be found on the ground. Turkeys will be more scattered in areas that didn’t produce as many nuts. Hunters should concentrate on fields in those locations.
Hunters who plan to hunt public land can learn a lot from Kentucky Fish and Wildlife’s online Telecheck results, which show public areas with the highest turkey harvest. Go to fw.ky.gov. Telecheck results from last spring’s season show several areas in the western half of Kentucky, such as Peabody Wildlife Management Area and Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, that posted high turkey harvests.
“As far as locations in general, the Green River Region has the highest production on a statewide basis,” said Dobey. “They have plenty of habitat, agriculture and they have great reproduction every year. That’s reflected in the harvest.”
Tony Black, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife’s regional coordinator in western Kentucky’s Purchase Region, said hunters should also check out Pennyrile State Forest in Christian, Caldwell and Hopkins counties.
“There are more than 16,000 acres there,” Black said. “Pennyrile is a pretty good place to hunt.”
Black cautioned hunters that wooded areas will be more difficult to navigate this year, as the ice storm left behind low-hanging branches and debris.
“Be careful in the woods this season,” he said. “A lot of our areas still have broken branches hanging in the trees.”
Marrowbone State Forest and Wildlife Management Area in Cumberland and Metcalfe counties is a newly opened southern Kentucky area. It holds a good population of turkeys and is open under statewide regulations for the spring hunting seasons.
The Daniel Boone National Forest in eastern Kentucky continues to be a productive area to turkey hunt. With fewer forest openings and more mountainous terrain, this area will give hunters a workout.
“You may do more walking, but it’s beautiful scenery, and there is low hunting pressure considering the amount of land,” Dobey said.
For complete spring turkey hunting regulations, pick up a copy of the 2009 Kentucky Hunting Guide for Spring Turkey & Squirrel, available wherever hunting licenses are sold
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