Maine
What you need to know about Maine’s spring wild turkey season
If you’ve pushed alongside nation roads previous open fields and even down I-95 throughout the previous couple of weeks, you’ve most likely seen: wild turkeys are once more strutting their stuff.
Which means each camouflage-clad hunter in Maine could have a shot throughout the subsequent 4 weeks to take part in one of many state’s most thrilling pursuits.
The search for a bearded turkey begins Saturday with Youth Spring Wild Turkey Day, which is reserved for hunters ages 16 and beneath who maintain a legitimate junior searching license. The season for remaining hunters will get beneath approach on Monday, Could 2.
Youth hunters account for roughly 8 to 10 % of the annual wild turkey harvest, in response to Kelsey Sullivan, a wildlife biologist for the Maine Division of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Final spring, 481 turkeys have been shot on youth day, accounting for 8 % of the entire.
The spring season, which runs via June 4, has smaller bag limits than within the fall, when birds of both intercourse could also be focused. In Wildlife Administration Districts 7 and 9-29, hunters might harvest two bearded turkeys. That focuses the hunt on male birds, generally known as toms and jakes, though some hens (females) might have a beard, additionally.
Hunters in WMDs 1-6 and eight, which embody a lot of northern Maine and the world west and north of Moosehead Lake, might take one bearded male chook. There are fewer wild turkeys in these areas, thus the decrease bag restrict.
Hunters are required to take their harvested turkeys to a licensed recreation registration station throughout the spring season. That differs from the autumn season, throughout which it’s not required to current turkeys for tagging. That change stemmed from a regulation enacted final 12 months.
Eliminating the requirement to register turkeys within the fall season relieves the burden on hunters with out compromising the division’s capacity to watch and handle the inhabitants, in response to DIF&W Wildlife Division Director Nate Webb.
Nevertheless, there probably might be additional alterations to the method of turkey registrations beginning in 2022. A invoice that’s anticipated to go within the Legislature later this 12 months would give turkey hunters the choice to register their birds both in individual or electronically.
There are particular guidelines for the adults who head afield with the children on youth turkey day. They’re outlined by DIF&W as “junior hunter supervisors.
These might embody a dad or mum or guardian of the junior hunter who holds or has held a legitimate Maine searching license or efficiently accomplished a hunter security course. Additionally eligible is somebody age 18 or older who’s each authorized by the dad or mum or guardian of the junior hunter and who holds or has held a legitimate Maine searching license or efficiently accomplished a hunter security course.
Hunters beneath the age of 10 should be within the presence of, and beneath the efficient management of, a junior hunter supervisor who stays inside 20 toes of the hunter always. Hunters ages 10–15 must be within the presence of, and beneath the efficient management of, a junior hunter supervisor.
Hunters who’ve turned 16 and possess a junior license are eligible on youth day, however nonetheless should have grownup supervision, even when they’ve accomplished the hunter security course.
The accompanying dad or mum, guardian or certified grownup can not possess a firearm, bow and arrow or crossbow. The exception is possession of a handgun, which might not be used for the aim of searching.
Final spring, 5,891 wild turkeys have been harvested by hunters in Maine. These numbers are actually solely tallied throughout the spring season, when tagging is required.
The spring 2021 complete was 5 % decrease than the estimated 6,216 turkeys harvested in 2020, when registration of the birds was waived by Gov. Janet Mills within the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was 4 % under the common of the earlier 4 seasons.
The very best spring tally over the past 5 years got here in 2019, when 6,612 turkeys have been harvested by hunters.
If you happen to’re on the lookout for some basic intel in regard to the perfect areas to shoot a wild turkey, right here’s what it is best to know.
By way of the five-year common, Wildlife Administration District 20 leads the best way with 663 birds per spring season. Different top-producing zones embody WMD 23 (657), WMD 15 (589), WMD 21 (578), WMD 17 (572) and WMD 25 (565).
Test right here for an interactive map exhibiting the areas of Maine’s Wildlife Administration Districts.
The spring wild turkey searching season concludes on Saturday, June 4.