Ohio’s wild turkey hunters took full advantage of last
week’s pleasant weather to ace an increase in the state’s wild turkey kill.
At least for the first week of the season’s four-week-long hunting
period, anyway; and when 2015’s numbers are placed alongside those of 2016.
Last week Ohio’s turkey hunters registered 8,629 birds as
being shot; or up from the 8,158 turkeys shot during the 2015 season’s first
week.
Continuing with comparisons, the 2014 first-week spring wild
turkey hunting-season kill figures show that 8,074 birds were shot.
In all for this year’s first-week spring season totals, 63
of Ohio’s 88 counties recorded gains, some significantly. Among them is the
current leader – Ashtabula County – whose first week statistics show that 261
birds were taken, up from last year’s first-week kill of 195 birds.
Other noteworthy counties that posted increases included Clermont
– 207 birds for this season’s first week and compared to last year’s first-week
take of 160 birds. Another example is Muskingum County which saw this year’s
first-week kill grow to 242 birds. That figure is up from last year’s
first-week take of 217 birds for Muskingum County.
But this year’s first-week spring turkey season kill figures
can be somewhat misleading. A number of the traditionally top spring turkey hunting
counties demonstrated decided declines in 2015 when placed alongside those of
2014.
Ashtabula County’s first-week turkey kill in 2014, for
example, was 253 birds. Thus this year’s spring turkey kill in Ashtabula County
of 261 birds actually more closely mirrors that of 2014 than it does that of
2015.
Another example of this recovery in the first week turkey kill
numbers is Geauga County. This year 125 turkeys were registered as being taken
there for the first week of the season. While that 125 number is up considerably
from its 2015 match-up of 98 birds, it is really a near identical twin to its
2014 number of 123 birds.
Harrison County serves as another illustration to the
paradox. Here and for the first week of this spring turkey-hunting season 212
birds were recorded as being killed; up from the 194 registered during the
first week of the 2015 spring season. Even so, the 212 birds reflect almost
perfectly the 2014 first-week turkey kill in Harrison County of 214 birds.
Even so, the bottom line when addressing county-by-county
bird kill numbers – at least for the first week anyway – points to a fine to-date spring
wild-turkey-hunting season. In essence, the data strongly suggests there were
more winners than there were losers.
Still, along with gains seen from 2015 to 2016 were some
declines recorded in the spring season’s turkey kill numbers. Here, 23 counties
displayed losses with the remainder of the counties registering respective
identical first-week kills.
Among the noteworthy counties with declines were Coshocton (209
this seasons’ first week verses last season’s first-week kill of 229); Guernsey
216 for this season’s first week verses last season’s first-week kill of 242),
and Vinton (141 for this season’s first-week kill verses last season’s
first-week kill of 182).
With nearly three weeks remaining in Ohio’s four-week-long
spring wild turkey-hunting season – it runs until May 15th – there
is still plenty of time to fill a tag.
However, statistically about 46 percent of all spring
turkeys are killed during the first week. Only about 18 percent of the season’s
total number of birds taken is shot during the second week.
By the third week that number falls sharply to 14 percent of
the total kill and to 13 percent for the final, forth, week. Youth hunters add
another nine percent or so to the overall spring season total.
Last year Ohio issued nearly 66,000 spring wild
turkey-hunting permits of all types: Adults, youths, non-residents, reduced
rate senior citizens, and free senior citizens and handicapped.
Editor’s Note: A list of all wild turkeys
checked by hunters during the first week of the 2016 spring turkey season is
shown below. The first number following the county’s name shows the harvest
numbers for 2016, and the 2015 numbers are in parentheses.
Adams: 220 (184); Allen: 37 (37); Ashland: 88
(92); Ashtabula: 261 (195); Athens: 168 (160); Auglaize: 22 (21); Belmont: 255
(246); Brown: 167 (162); Butler: 93 (76); Carroll: 169 (161); Champaign: 46
(56); Clark: 8 (13); Clermont: 207 (160); Clinton: 19 (23); Columbiana: 179
(179); Coshocton: 209 (229); Crawford: 45 (33); Cuyahoga: 4 (3); Darke: 17
(15); Defiance: 143 (123); Delaware: 47 (50); Erie: 28 (23); Fairfield: 50
(53); Fayette: 9 (7); Franklin: 10 (4); Fulton: 54 (63); Gallia: 212 (196);
Geauga: 125 (98); Greene: 11 (12); Guernsey: 216 (242); Hamilton: 60 (43);
Hancock: 25 (29); Hardin: 49 (46); Harrison: 212 (194); Henry: 31 (27);
Highland: 163 (156); Hocking: 161 (116); Holmes: 111 (109); Huron: 54 (68);
Jackson: 188 (172); Jefferson: 202 (182); Knox: 144 (166); Lake: 21 (24);
Lawrence: 146 (111); Licking: 140 (189); Logan: 57 (52); Lorain: 58 (51);
Lucas: 30 (20); Madison: 5 (2); Mahoning: 104 (85); Marion: 19 (18); Medina: 70
(58); Meigs: 229 (224); Mercer: 9 (7); Miami 9 (7); Monroe: 220 (234);
Montgomery: 11 (10); Morgan: 172 (170); Morrow: 97 (81); Muskingum: 242
(217); Noble: 153 (163); Ottawa: 1 (0); Paulding: 58 (41); Perry: 121 (115);
Pickaway: 13 (12); Pike: 132 (123); Portage: 95 (98); Preble: 55 (45); Putnam:
40 (39); Richland: 130 (133); Ross: 183 (153); Sandusky: 14 (7); Scioto: 129
(115); Seneca: 69 (78); Shelby: 22 (23); Stark: 120 (88); Summit: 26 (20);
Trumbull: 204 (194); Tuscarawas: 208 (197); Union: 29 (19); Van Wert: 11 (10);
Vinton: 141 (182); Warren: 55 (39); Washington: 222 (252); Wayne: 49 (45);
Williams: 133 (128); Wood: 16 (6); Wyandot: 42 (49); Total: 8,629 (8,158)
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. Jeff is the recipient of more than 125 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.
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