Monday, April 24, 2017

UPDATED: Ohio's youth-only hunt and general spring season turkey opener; Awesome




If the rest of Ohio’s spring wild turkey hunting goes as well as it did during the just-concluded two-day/youth-only hunt, a lot of Thanksgiving Day roaster pans will be preparing dinner.

And it appears that adults will be pitching in to help save the lives of Butterball-brand, store-bought turkeys. These hunters enjoyed tremendous success during the general spring turkey-hunting season on Monday, April 24th.

Ohio’s two-day youth-only season ran April 22nd and 23rd. Young guns age 17 and younger shot and killed 1,895 bearded birds. That figure is up 331 birds from the 1,564 turkeys shot during the 2016 two-day/youth-only hunt.

Other youth hunt  statistics point to the notation that of Ohio’s 88 counties, only five failed to record any birds taken: Cuyahoga, Ottawa, Fayette, Madison, and Pickaway counties.

Also, of Ohio’s 88 counties, 48 of them posted increases, 27 recorded declines and the remainder posted identical – though still preliminary - 2016 season and 2017 youth-only season tallies.

The  counties which reported turkey kills of at least 50 birds each – and with their respective 2016 two-day/youth-only numbers in parentheses - were: Muskingum – 82 (33); Monroe – 71 (51); Coshocton – 63 (34); Washington – 58 (52); Harrison also 58 (39); Tuscarawas – 56 (44); Noble – 55 (also 55); and Ashtabula – 50 (44).

Today – April 24th - marks the start of Ohio’s general spring wild turkey hunting season for 83 of Ohio’s 88 counties. It concludes in these counties May 21st.

The general spring wild turkey hunting season for the extreme Northeast Ohio counties of Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula and Trumbull will run May 1st through May 28th.

In all cases of the general spring wild turkey-hunting seasons the season bag limit is two bearded birds, but only one per day. Besides a general Ohio hunting license a special spring-only turkey permit is required for each bird.

In the case of the spring general season opener on Monday, hunters killed 3,123 bearded wild turkeys. Even without the five extreme Northeast Ohio counties that figure is still 612 more birds than were shot during the 2016 spring season opener when 2,511 turkeys were killed.

Here is the list of county-by-county turkeys killed during the 2017 spring season opener April 24th. Remember that the season is still closed in Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula and Trumbull counties until May 1st.
The counties’ 2016 opening day results are in parentheses: Adams: 92 (56); Allen: 8 (11); Ashland: 41 (24); Ashtabula: * (85); Athens: 61 (42); Auglaize: 8 (8); Belmont: 81 (73); Brown: 66 (47); Butler: 36 (27); Carroll: 91 (53); Champaign: 19 (12); Clark: 4 (2); Clermont: 75 (56); Clinton: 9 (9); Columbiana: 54 (50); Coshocton: 123 (72); Crawford: 8 (15); Cuyahoga: * (2); Darke: 5 (4); Defiance: 47 (50); Delaware: 17 (11); Erie: 4 (8); Fairfield: 16 (14); Fayette: 4 (0); Franklin: 4 (3); Fulton: 19 (15); Gallia: 69 (47); Geauga: * (36); Greene: 2 (4); Guernsey: 108 (67); Hamilton: 18 (18); Hancock: 6 (5); Hardin: 14 (13); Harrison: 92 (67); Henry: 8 (8); Highland: 86 (49); Hocking: 66 (46); Holmes: 58 (40); Huron: 31 (17); Jackson: 57 (48); Jefferson: 54 (60); Knox: 85 (52); Lake: * (6); Lawrence: 45 (38); Licking: 81 (46); Logan: 27 (13); Lorain: 22 (20); Lucas: 8 (13); Madison: 1 (3); Mahoning: 32 (30); Marion: 4 (8); Medina: 19 (18); Meigs: 84 (63); Mercer: 7 (2); Miami: 4 (1); Monroe: 83 (57); Montgomery: 5 (4); Morgan: 66 (32); Morrow: 37 (30); Muskingum: 89 (67); Noble: 72 (42); Ottawa: 0 (0); Paulding: 19 (17); Perry: 48 (48); Pickaway: 4 (2); Pike: 37 (38); Portage: 38 (30); Preble: 14 (22); Putnam: 9 (8); Richland: 39 (43); Ross: 70 (53); Sandusky: 4 (4); Scioto: 53 (32); Seneca: 27 (21); Shelby: 5 (12); Stark: 43 (31); Summit: 7 (9); Trumbull: * (72); Tuscarawas: 115 (69); Union: 6 (9); Van Wert: 7 (4); Vinton: 70 (33); Warren: 16 (12); Washington: 78 (58); Wayne: 21 (18); Williams: 41 (39); Wood: 2 (0); Wyandot: 18 (8). Total: 3,123 (2,511).


By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net

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