Ohio's licensed turkey-hunting youths take full advantage of nice weather

Blessed with some truly remarkable nice weather, Ohio’s young guns took a hammer to the state’s wild turkey flock.

Would be that the state’s adult turkey hunters could enjoy similarly please weather during Ohio’s general spring turkey-hunting season which began today, April 20^th.

Instead, for at least the season’s first week anyway hunters will contend with winds, rain, gusty winds at times and even the possibility of wet snow in Northeast Ohio on Thursday.

Bur, rough stuff but it was nice those youths aged 17 and younger enjoy largely sunny skies, no rain, and (for a change) unseasonably warm temperatures.

The state’s two-day/youth-only wild turkey-hunting season ran April 18^th and 19^th. During that short period these kids killed 1,589 bearded wild turkeys. Last year for the same hunt youngsters killed 1,480 wild turkeys.

Doing the math the youths saw a net gain of 7.36 percent.

However, the Ohio Division of Wildlife says not to place too much stock into this increase spilling over to the general spring wild turkey-hunting season, which continues until May 17.

“I poured over the youth season data results myself but I really didn’t see anything that jumped out at me,” said Scott Peters, wildlife biologist for the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s District Three (Northeast Ohio) office.

Given that the past two springs yielded “good but not great hatches,” Peters  believes the turkey harvest for this year’s spring season will “be up a couple of percentage points, though I don’t know by how much.”

During the 2014 general spring wild turkey-hunting season, Ohio licensed hunters shot 15,076 birds.

Still, turkey hunters – and just like their deer hunting counterparts – would always like to see more gobblers flying down off their roosts every morning.

“Turkey hunters would be happy with having more birds and I’m still hoping that we’ll again see that ‘perfect storm’ where we have a good hatch, nice weather when the chicks are growing along with a good cicada hatch for the birds to eat,” Peters said.

Hope really does then breathe eternal in the hearts of hunters.

Here is the county-by-county breakdown for the just concluded two-day/youth-only wild turkey-hunting season:

Based on Selected Date of Check

Between Apr 19, 2014 and Apr 20, 2014 & Between Apr 18, 2015 and Apr 19, 2015

For Hunting Implements: Unknown, Shotgun, Crossbow, Longbow, Muzzleloader, Hand Gun, Unknown, Invalid

County 2015 2014 % Change

Adams 36 32 12.50%

Allen 10 4 150.00%

Ashland 24 23 4.35%

Ashtabula 32 47 -31.91%

Athens 32 25 28.00%

Auglaize 2 2 0.00%

Belmont 38 36 5.56%

Brown 37 34 8.82%

Butler 19 18 5.56%

Carroll 30 32 -6.25%

Champaign 4 5 -20.00%

Clark 2 0 /0

Clermont 22 17 29.41%

Clinton 5 4 25.00%

Columbiana 43 44 -2.27%

Coshocton 48 53 -9.43%

Crawford 2 7 -71.43%

Darke 15 12 25.00%

Defiance 27 15 80.00%

Delaware 5 10 -50.00%

Erie 2 4 -50.00%

Fairfield 6 8 -25.00%

Fayette 1 0 /0

Franklin 2 1 100.00%

Fulton 11 16 -31.25%

Gallia 32 27 18.52%

Geauga 27 23 17.39%

Greene 0 3 -100.00%

Guernsey 50 34 47.06%

Hamilton 6 7 -14.29%

Hancock 3 2 50.00%

Hardin 4 3 33.33%

Harrison 41 25 64.00%

Henry 11 3 266.67%

Highland 36 32 12.50%

Hocking 27 23 17.39%

Holmes 29 32 -9.38%

Huron 22 13 69.23%

Jackson 38 34 11.76%

Jefferson 31 33 -6.06%

Knox 32 48 -33.33%

Lake 2 2 0.00%

Lawrence 22 17 29.41%

County 2015 2014 % Change

Licking 33 33 0.00%

Logan 6 14 -57.14%

Lorain 5 10 -50.00%

Lucas 4 4 0.00%

Mahoning 19 25 -24.00%

Marion 3 0 /0

Medina 12 2 500.00%

Meigs 44 37 18.92%

Mercer 1 1 0.00%

Monroe 57 27 111.11%

Montgomery 1 0 /0

Morgan 30 27 11.11%

Morrow 19 16 18.75%

Muskingum 48 48 0.00%

Noble 44 31 41.94%

Paulding 11 6 83.33%

Perry 31 31 0.00%

Pickaway 2 4 -50.00%

Pike 14 18 -22.22%

Portage 12 22 -45.45%

Preble 10 9 11.11%

Putnam 12 9 33.33%

Richland 33 30 10.00%

Ross 25 28 -10.71%

Sandusky 1 0 /0

Scioto 9 16 -43.75%

Seneca 15 19 -21.05%

Shelby 6 3 100.00%

Stark 21 23 -8.70%

Summit 1 3 -66.67%

Trumbull 35 34 2.94%

Tuscarawas 46 42 9.52%

Union 2 2 0.00%

Van Wert 1 2 -50.00%

Vinton 25 12 108.33%

Warren 4 7 -42.86%

Washington 40 36 11.11%

Wayne 6 14 -57.14%

Williams 19 15 26.67%

Wood 4 2 100.00%

Wyandot 10 8 25.00%

Statewide Totals

2015 2014 % Change

1,589 1,480

-      Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

-      JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Jeff is the retired News-Herald reporter who  covered the earth sciences, the area's three county park systems and the outdoors for the newspaper. During his 30 years with The News-Herald Jeff was the recipient of more than 100 state, regional and national journalism awards. He also is a columnist and features writer for the Ohio Outdoor News, which is published every other week and details the outdoors happenings in the state.