Monday, April 20, 2020

Ohio's youth turkey hunters score big during their special season

In running far ahead of the plummeting number of youth turkey hunting licenses sold, the tally of birds taken during Ohio’s two-day youth-only spring season rose sharply.

This season ran April 18th and 19th. Youths age 17 and younger were allowed to hunt. They shot 1,843 wild turkeys, an increase of 512 birds from the 1,331 turkeys the youths killed during the 2019 youth-only season. That was an increase of about 39 percent.

Which was in sharp contrast to the number of youth spring turkey hunting licenses issued by the Ohio Division of Wildlife. As of April 13th, the Wildlife Division had sold just 1,935 youth spring turkey hunting licenses: a drop of 3,738 such permits the agency issued for the same period in 2019 (5,673 documents).

Top 11 counties for wild turkey harvest during the 2020 youth season include: Monroe (71), Tuscarawas (68), Muskingum (63), Meigs (57), Washington (55), Noble (51), Guernsey (48), Belmont (47), Coshocton (45), Columbiana (44) and Harrison (44).

Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 11 showed declines while three had identical 2019 and 2020 youth-only spring turkey hunting season kills.

Here is the county-by-county breakdown, their the respective 2019 figures in parentheses: Adams: 41 (26); Allen: 10 (5); Ashland: 19 (23); Ashtabula: 36 (33); Athens: 34 (22); Auglaize: 4 (5); Belmont: 47 (38); Brown: 40 (36); Butler: 24 (10); Carroll: 32 (25); Champaign: 9 (2); Clark: 4 (1); Clermont: 31 (25); Clinton: 15 (6); Columbiana: 44 (30); Coshocton: 45 (42); Crawford: 3 (2); Darke: 8 (17); Defiance: 40 (17); Delaware: 11 (6); Erie: 2 (5); Fairfield: 11 (3); Fayette: 5 (1); Franklin: 2 (0); Fulton: 23 (7); Gallia: 36 (26); Geauga: 13 (18); Greene: 1 (2); Guernsey: 48 (44); Hamilton: 5 (4); Hancock: 7 (1); Hardin: 9 (8); Harrison: 44 (38); Henry: 13 (10); Highland: 41 (23); Hocking: 26 (10); Holmes: 37 (28); Huron: 7 (8); Jackson: 30 (21); Jefferson: 36 (31); Knox: 33 (30); Lake: 6 (6); Lawrence: 19 (17); Licking: 30 (22); Logan: 12 (7); Lorain: 11 (10); Lucas: 8 (3); Madison: 0 (1); Mahoning: 16 (18); Marion: 5 (2); Medina: 18 (6); Meigs: 57 (38); Mercer: 4 (1); Miami: 7 (2); Monroe: 71 (66); Montgomery: 3 (2); Morgan: 36 (25); Morrow: 21 (13); Muskingum: 63 (30); Noble: 51 (50); Paulding: 9 (3); Perry: 33 (19); Pickaway: 6 (1); Pike: 13 (16); Portage: 19 (18); Preble: 8 (6); Putnam: 11 (6); Richland: 16 (21); Ross: 31 (17); Sandusky: 3 (0); Scioto: 28 (11); Seneca: 8 (13); Shelby: 4 (2); Stark: 19 (11); Summit: 3 (5); Trumbull: 43 (22); Tuscarawas: 68 (47); Union: 5 (4); Van Wert: 4 (2); Vinton: 35 (29); Warren: 15 (5); Washington: 55 (39); Wayne: 11 (11); Williams: 20 (7); Wood: 4 (0); Wyandot: 8 (8).


- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com

No comments:

Post a Comment