First week of Ohio's spring turkey season bags more than 10,000 birds

Ohio’s turkey hunters are finding that during the spring season’s second week the ground is soggy, the air is wet and the creeks are running too full to jump over.

However, they sure did bust up the flocks during the spring season’s first week. Or at least those hunters participating in Ohio’s newly designated South Zone; which is comprised of 83 of the state’s 88 counties.

Excluded are the five counties which comprise the Northeast Ohio Zone: Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, and Trumbull counties. These counties saw their spring turkey season door swing open this past Monday, May 1^st.

For the South Zone, hunters logged a preliminary 10,280 wild turkeys killed during the first week of the wild turkey hunting season, April 24^th through 30th. By comparison, in 2016 hunters checked 8,629 wild turkeys statewide – that’s for all 88 counties - during the first week of the season.

High numbers were anticipated as an unusually strong cicada emergence occurred last spring across much 0- but not all – of Ohio during spring, 2016. Such emergences typically mean access to a high-protein diet for both adult and juvenile turkeys. This condition then translates into both good poult production and strong survivability of young birds.

Ohio’s spring wild turkey season is divided into two zones: The South Zone, which is open from Monday, April 24th to Sunday, May 21st, and the Northeast Zone, which opened Monday, May 1st and runs to to Sunday, May 28th.

Hunting hours are a little convoluted, though not so much that with a little care a hunter is not breaking any of the spring turkey-hunting season’s rules.

In the South Zone, legal shooting hours are 30 minutes before sunrise until noon from April 24th-May 7^th and 30 minutes before sunrise to sunset from May 8^th to May 21st.

Hunting hours in the Northeast Zone are 30 minutes before sunrise until noon from May 1-14 and 30 minutes before sunrise to sunset from May 15-28.

Here is the preliminary list of wild turkeys checked by hunters in the South Zone during the first week of the spring turkey hunting season. The first number following the county’s name shows the turkeys killed for 2017, and the respective comparable 2016 numbers are in parentheses. Asterisks designates each one of the five Northeast Zone counties, which were open during the first week of the spring wild turkey season in 2016, but did not open until this past Monday, May 1^st:

Adams: 280 (220); Allen: 36 (37); Ashland: 135 (88); Ashtabula: * (261); Athens: 217 (168); Auglaize: 30 (22); Belmont: 273 (255); Brown: 218 (167); Butler: 100 (93); Carroll: 237 (169); Champaign: 45 (46); Clark: 9 (8); Clermont: 220 (207); Clinton: 27 (19); Columbiana: 173 (179); Coshocton: 348 (209); Crawford: 32 (45); Cuyahoga: * (4); Darke: 14 (17); Defiance: 140 (143); Delaware: 45 (47); Erie: 31 (28); Fairfield: 69 (50); Fayette: 9 (9); Franklin: 9 (10); Fulton: 71 (54); Gallia: 271 (212); Geauga: * (125); Greene: 9 (11); Guernsey: 321 (216); Hamilton: 52 (60); Hancock: 24 (25); Hardin: 43 (49); Harrison: 298 (212); Henry: 31 (31); Highland: 220 (163); Hocking: 230 (161); Holmes: 168 (111); Huron: 87 (54); Jackson: 240 (188); Jefferson: 225 (202); Knox: 226 (144); Lake: * (21); Lawrence: 160 (146); Licking: 234 (140); Logan: 69 (57); Lorain: 89 (58); Lucas: 31 (30); Madison: 2 (5); Mahoning: 103 (104); Marion: 22 (19); Medina: 73 (70); Meigs: 309 (229); Mercer: 12 (9); Miami: 6 (9); Monroe: 311 (220); Montgomery: 9 (11); Morgan: 223 (172); Morrow: 96 (97); Muskingum: 321 (242); Noble: 253 (153); Ottawa: 1 (1); Paulding: 52 (58); Perry: 200 (121); Pickaway: 10 (13); Pike: 153 (132); Portage: 143 (95); Preble: 40 (55); Putnam: 32 (40); Richland: 168 (130); Ross: 227 (183); Sandusky: 11 (14); Scioto: 183 (129); Seneca: 90 (69); Shelby: 27 (22); Stark: 170 (120); Summit: 27 (26); Trumbull: * (204); Tuscarawas: 370 (208); Union: 27 (29); Van Wert: 11 (11); Vinton: 215 (141); Warren: 45 (55); Washington: 277 (222); Wayne: 73 (49); Williams: 131 (133); Wood: 11 (16); Wyandot: 50 (42). Total: 10,280 (8,629).

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net