Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) is reminding hunters that the 2013 Connecticut spring wild turkey hunting season runs from April 24 to May 25. In addition to the regular season, there are two special Saturdays which provide an opportunity for youth hunters to learn safe and effective wild turkey hunting techniques. The first one will be held this Saturday (April 13) and the second one will be held on April 20. On these days, licensed junior hunters (ages 12-15) with a valid spring season turkey permit can hunt while accompanied by a licensed adult mentor. The mentor may not carry a firearm, and juniors may hunt any state land open to turkey hunting or private land where they have obtained written consent of the landowner.

This year will mark the 33rd consecutive year that sportsmen have hunted turkeys in Connecticut. The statewide turkey population is estimated between 35,000-38,000 birds. Healthy and numerous wild turkey populations exist throughout the majority of Connecticut’s woodlands. During the 2012 spring turkey season, 8,615 hunters took 1,364 bearded turkeys.

“In addition to longer and warmer days, spring brings a special treat for many Connecticut hunters – turkey hunting. Our mixed hardwood forests and adjacent agricultural lands offer ideal habitat and plentiful forage, which in combination provide for some of the finest turkey hunting in New England,” said Rick Jacobson, Director of the DEEP Wildlife Division.

During the 2013 spring season, two bearded turkeys may be taken on state land and three on private land. Hunting is permitted from one-half hour before sunrise until noon each day, except on the designated junior hunter training days when the hunting hours have been extended until 5:00 PM.

Tagging and Reporting Requirements: All harvested turkeys must be tagged immediately and reported to the DEEP on-line (www.ct.gov/deep/hunting) or by phone (1-877-337-4868) within 24 hours. Hunters must use 2013 Harvest Tags to record information about turkeys they harvest. Copies of the 2013 Harvest Tags and instructions are on page 25 of the 2013 Connecticut Hunting and Trapping Guide and also are available on the DEEP website at www.ct.gov/deep/hunting. Hunters are no longer required to mail in a harvest report card. After reporting their harvest via the Internet or by telephone, hunters will be given a confirmation number to write on their Harvest Tag. This confirmation number serves as proof that the harvest was legally reported.

Recommended safety precautions for spring turkey hunting:

· Become familiar with two or more areas to hunt, so if someone is already hunting in one of those areas, you can move to another site.

· If another hunter is encountered in the woods, remain still and speak in a loud clear voice to announce your presence.

· Eliminate the colors red, white, and blue from your hunting outfit. These colors are associated with a gobbler’s head and could be mistaken as a turkey.

· Hunters must be sure of their target and what is beyond it, prior to taking a shot.



“Common sense and patience are required for maintaining a safe hunting experience and harvesting a gobbler,” added Jacobson. “Spring turkey hunting requires preparation. Scouting, calling, and hunting techniques unique to this effort can be learned by attending seminars, reading articles, watching videos, and talking with experienced turkey hunters.”

Turkey hunters who hunt on private land are reminded that written landowner permission, on a form provided by the DEEP, is required. Hunters may obtain both a private land and state land permit type during the spring season. Private land and state land permits may be purchased on-line (www.ct.gov/deep/sportsmenlicensing) or over the counter at some DEEP offices, town clerk offices, and commercial vendors that sell hunting, fishing, and outdoor equipment. More information on the spring turkey season, hunting regulations, junior hunter training days, and tagging and reporting requirements is contained in the 2013 Connecticut Hunting and Trapping Guide, which is available wherever hunting licenses are sold and on the DEEP’s Web site (www.ct.gov/deep/hunting). 


By Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection 

Dog Deer Hunts Still On Schedule … For Now

 ACCOMAC — The earliest Accomack County could see any change in regulations regarding the practice of deer hunting with dogs would be 2014, according to the county attorney.

Accomack County Attorney Mark Taylor recommended the Board of Supervisors consider holding a public hearing either this summer or next summer on the issue of whether deer hunting with dogs should be banned in the county.


Supervisors took no immediate action on the recommendation.


A ban would have to be accomplished by amending Virginia’s hunting regulations.

The Board of Supervisors agreed to revisit the issue, a decade after that body last discussed it, after three men spoke against the practice during a public comment period in February.


It is too late to try to add Accomack County to the list of Virginia counties where dog deer hunting is prohibited this year, because the Virginia Board of Game and Inland Fisheries, the body that decides hunting regulations, already met earlier this month to formally receive staff recommendations on changes for this year, Taylor said.


“They like to get that kind of request along about September,” he told the board, adding the BGIF “would like to see it come to them as a request from the locality, preferably based on public input.”


If officials were to hold a public hearing this summer and make a recommendation by September, it would be the 2014 deer hunting season before any changes took effect.


The issue generated vociferous debate back in 2003 when, after a crowded public hearing, the Board of Supervisors voted 4-2 to recommend the state continue to allow the practice in Accomack County, but prohibit it during the first 10 days of deer season and also extend the season by 10 days.


State hunting regulations currently allow dogs to be used for deer hunting in Accomack County, without those restrictions.



Northampton County is among 12 localities east of the Blue Ridge Mountains where it is not allowed. Deer hunting with dogs is not allowed anywhere west of the Blue Ridge in Virginia.



Madison and Greene counties prohibit dog hunting during the first 12 days of the firearms deer season.



Written By:  CVVAUGHN

View strutting sage-grouse, April 13

The "bloop, bloop" sound that male sage-grouse make, as they strut on their breeding grounds, is one of the most unique sounds you'll ever hear in nature.

And the sight of the grouse strutting is pretty unique too!

You can hear and watch this ritual yourself at a free wildlife-viewing event in east-central Utah. The event will happen April 13 at Emma Park, about 13 miles north of Price.

The Division of Wildlife Resources is sponsoring the event.

To see and hear the spectacle, you need to be at the viewing site early. Viewing is best before the sun comes up and just after the sun has risen. Grouse leave their strutting ground within an hour after sun up. Sunrise will be about 7 a.m. so attendees should plan to meet at Emma Park at or slightly before 7 a.m. Look for one or more vehicles with a state emblem.

Before making the trip, please remember that several things can force the grouse to leave the viewing site early or to not visit the site at all. For example, eagles or coyotes near the site can scare the grouse away. Wind, rain or snow can also keep the grouse under cover and out of sight.

After the birds leave their breeding ground, the grouse spend the day feeding and resting in stands of sagebrush. They remain mostly out-of-sight until the following morning at first light, when they congregate at their strutting ground again.

DWR biologists will be at the viewing site with spotting scopes and binoculars. They'll help you find the grouse. They'll also answer any questions you have.

Mechanical, Electronic Turkey Decoys Illegal in Alabama

Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Director Chuck Sykes reminds all turkey hunters in the state that certain decoys are illegal to use or possess while hunting in Alabama.

 

“I’ve had several people contact me about the use of the latest technology in decoys, which are mechanical,” Sykes said. “Alabama’s game laws strictly prohibit those type decoys while you’re hunting.”

 

Regulation 220-2-.11 states that “it shall be unlawful for any person while engaged in hunting turkey in this state to use or have in his possession a decoy which has mechanical or electronic parts, which makes the decoy capable of movement or producing sound or which can be manipulated to produce movement or sound.”

Sykes also said several hunters in Alabama have run afoul of the regulation that requires the harvest of the state’s big-game species of white-tailed deer and wild turkeys be written on the appropriate harvest record before the animal is moved.

“That regulation has been in effect since 2007,” Sykes said. “Hunters are required to have the harvest record with you so you can ‘note it before you tote it.’”

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources promotes wise stewardship, management and enjoyment of Alabama’s natural resources through five divisions: Marine Police, Marine Resources, State Parks, State Lands, and Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. To learn more about ADCNR visit www.outdooralabama.com.


Outdoor Alabama 

Antler hunters: stay on roads and trails

 The warmer weather is bringing more and more people into Utah's backcountry. But many of these folks aren't hiking or mountain biking — they're "hunting" for shed antlers.

Every spring, shed antler hunters comb Utah's backcountry, looking for antlers that have dropped from the heads of deer, elk or moose.

These animals shed their antlers every winter as part of their life cycle. Finding their antlers is a fun way to beat "cabin fever" and enjoy Utah's backcountry in the spring. If you decide to look for shed antlers this spring, remember to look for them only on foot. Keep your off-highway vehicle and truck only on roads and trails that are open to their use. If you take your OHV or truck off of legal roads and trails, you can do serious damage to the habitat that deer, elk and other wildlife rely on.


Muddy and soft

Because the ground is muddy in the spring, it's easy for vehicles to leave deep tracks this time of the year. Those tracks erode the soil. And that erosion reduces the ability the land has to support deer, elk and other wildlife.
The scars that are left also take years to heal. The tracks are an eyesore that causes people to further oppose OHV use and shed antler gathering.

Look for sheds on foot

If you'll follow some simple rules provided by the Division of Wildlife Resources and its partners in the RIDE ON Designated Routes Utah campaign, you can have fun collecting shed antlers without damaging the landscape and stressing animals that are in the area:

• Once you arrive at your shed antler hunting area, park your vehicle and hunt for shed antlers on foot.
• Once you've found some antlers, pack them to the nearest road. Then, leave them near the side of the road until you can drive back to pick them up.

Please leave the area as good as you found it. Don't be responsible for more land closures and vehicle restrictions in Utah.

Don't pick them up

As you're collecting antlers, please remember that you may not collect antlers that are still attached to the skull. This restriction was enacted after DWR conservation officers discovered people were shooting trophy animals on their winter range. In the spring, they'd return and retrieve the heads and the antlers of the animals they had poached. If officers stopped and questioned them, they would simply say that the animal the head and antlers belonged to must have died of natural causes, and they were lucky to find its antlers.
Telling a shed antler from an antler that's still attached to a skull plate or that's been broken off of a skull plate is easy:

• Shed antlers — which are legal to possess — have a rounded base, commonly called a button or burr.
• Antlers that are attached to a skull plate, or that have been broken off of a skull plate, do not have this button or burr. You may not possess them.

Free shed antler course

If you want to gather shed antlers in Utah between now and April 15, you must complete a free shed antler gathering course. If you wait until April 15 or later to gather antlers, you don't need to complete the course.
The free course is available online. After you finish the course, make sure you print your certificate of completion before heading outdoors to gather antlers. "And make sure you carry your certificate with you," Fowlks says. "By law, you must have your certificate with you while you're gathering shed antlers."
If you have children who are 17 years of age or younger, and you've completed the course, your children don't need to complete it — your certificate will cover your kids too.

Fowlks says if you complete the course, you can gather antlers across Utah. "Please remember, though, that many of the state's wildlife management areas are closed in the winter and spring to protect wildlife," he says.
For more information, call the nearest Division of Wildlife Resources office or the DWR's Salt Lake City office at 801-538-4700.

RIDE ON Designated Routes campaign

RIDE ON Designated Routes is a new statewide campaign that has united land management agencies to educate outdoor recreationists who use motorized vehicles on Utah's public lands.
The campaign, created by Tread Lightly!, has united the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration in an effort to spread a consistent OHV message throughout the state.

How to Live with Wildlife

What makes an animal a “nuisance?”  Most wildlife never comes close to people.  In fact, many people enjoy seeing such animals and believe that having them nearby adds to the value of their land.  However, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division animals such as deer, coyotes, bears, raccoons, foxes and skunks often get labeled as a nuisance due to their sometimes intrusive and destructive habits in suburban settings. 

“You can make a huge difference on whether or not that animal truly becomes a nuisance,” says Alex Coley, assistant chief with the Game Management Section.  “With just some simple preventative measures, you can find a way to still enjoy nature in your backyard, without presenting an all-access pass to your yard and home.”

Following are basic tips to help keep wildlife from becoming a nuisance:

• Don’t feed wildlife. 
• Keep items, such as grills, pet food or bird feeders, off-limits. Clean and store grills when not in use, keep pet food indoors or feed pets indoors, and refill bird feeders infrequently and in small amounts.
• Make trash cans inaccessible. Keep lids securely fastened or store trash cans in a secured location until trash pick-up. 

“Wildlife can, and will, take advantage of ‘easy food’ opportunities.  So, it is our job, as homeowners, to ensure that we are keeping these non-natural foods away from wildlife – for our safety and for the animals,” says Coley.

Options for handling nuisance wildlife (including a list of professional nuisance trappers), fact sheets, wildlife rehabilitator information, tips on managing land for wildlife, guides on rabies and much more can be found on the Wildlife Resources Division’s webpage www.georgiawildlife.com/nuisancewildlife.


GA-DNR

Gobblers On Your Home Turf:

 If you know where a bird is standing when he gobbles, you have an advantage that ups the odds of success on a spring morning.

If you’re like most turkey hunters, you’ll work a gobbler anywhere you can find him. When you strike a bird, the game is on and where you, or the gobbler, are standing at the time doesn’t matter. Lots of times the particulars of the property doesn’t come into play until some time has passed and the hunt begins to grind to a slow-paced battle of unknown maneuvers by you or the bird. More times than not, particularly if you are on hunting grounds that you aren’t overly familiar with, you will find yourself wishing you knew a little more about where the bird was standing the last time he gobbled and what was between you and him.

That’s why I prefer to get into it with a longbeard on my home turf. I don’t own a big chunk of property, but that hasn’t kept me from learning some public pieces of ground like the back of my hand. Knowing where birds like to roost, where they like to go after fly down and where they like to spend the day is valuable information. That kind of information can only be known by the hunter who is willing to learn these things through time spent in the woods over a period of time.

My home turf has expanded gradually over the years. When I strike a bird in one of these areas that I know so well, I have an advantage. On the other hand, I have missed out on opportunities to even get in the game with birds simply because I had no idea where to even begin the hunt, much less end it.

Let’s look at the valuable points of turning a piece of property into your personal stomping grounds and how to do it.

Find the birds: I think it’s safe to say that at some point in our turkey-hunting careers we have all been a little shy about jumping into a piece of public ground with any real confidence. That could come from the amount of other hunters that might frequent the spot or simply just because you have no idea where to begin. You have to start somewhere, so you might as well dive in and start putting the pieces of the puzzle together. The best way to go about it is to find the birds first. This is better done in early March when birds are pretty much where they will be come opening day. That isn’t to suggest that you don’t need to spend any time in the turkey woods before March though. You can learn an awful lot about your hunting grounds just by poking around.

By early March the birds are generally in the area you will find them in when the season opens up. From there you can learn where they like to roost and which direction they like to travel when they fly down. Once they vacate the area, you can find the best places to set up on them once the season opens. It’s not enough to just get somewhere you might hear a bird gobble in the morning because it generally doesn’t do too much good to hear birds in the far distance. You want to be tight enough on them to get in on the first-light conversation. It’s always a plus to hear birds gobbling, but if he’s a half a mile away, you’re probably not going to have a lot of luck getting him interested, at least not while there are plenty of hens at his disposal.

Where are they going? Once the birds have flown down, it is important to pay attention to where they are going; first the general direction and eventually where that direction is going to take them. Turkeys are rarely creatures of random habit. They have a reason they travel in certain areas. It could be anything from something as simple as the food supply is better up one side of the creek or the terrain is more suitable in one direction than the other.

Pay attention to detail here. If a flock continuously heads in one direction, find out what the reason is for doing so. There may be a pine thicket in one direction and an oak ridge bordering a green field in the other. Common sense tells you where the birds are more apt to go. Of course, you don’t want to put all your faith in common sense when dealing with a wild turkey, but it pays off sometimes. Once you learn where birds like to go, you have really discovered a great place to get in their way in the process. As the season fades, along with the surplus of hens, gobblers will continue to frequent areas that netted him romance in the early season. They will be more apt to be on the move to cover as many areas as they can, so the more of these areas you can locate, the better your chances of scoring. These areas can produce gobblers at all times of the day.

Why did he do that? I remember hunting an area of Cedar Creek WMA one morning where I had located a group of birds a day or so prior. I won’t overdo the details here, but I got my fanny whipped. Not to be discouraged, I tried the birds again the next morning, and the same results followed. A couple of days later, I tried them again, and again I was the loser. I had gotten the gobbler going each morning and had pulled him to within easy hearing of his drumming but never saw his face. Each morning, as I retreated to my truck with my tail tucked, I cursed the hens for ruining an otherwise beautiful spring day.

I was unable to hunt the spot for the next week, and when I finally got to hunt it again, nobody was home. I sat up in the same location as the previous hunts, and when the uneventful morning was over, I walked over the hill to see where the birds had been roosting. Once I cleared the hill, the old embarrassing “dunce” feeling hit me right between the eyes. There was a gully, just over the rise approximately 8 feet in depth and a good 4 feet wide. Not a huge obstacle for something with wings, but I have seen much less prevent a gobbler from dying.

I believe it was this gully and not the hens that ruined those previous morning hunts. I simply didn’t know what was over the hill and had never bothered to investigate. A little homework likely would have given me a passing grade on this bird before he decided to skip town. I have been guilty of being hard-headed on a turkey hunt or two, and this was just another case of it. I was bound and determined that he was going to die “my way.” I was wrong.

Sometimes it’s not enough to simply know what a bird did to whip your tail. It’s a good idea and can pay huge dividends later if you find out why he was able to do it so soundly. Most turkeys aren’t of the genius stature, though we are quick to label them as such at times. Also, I would imagine that most gobblers aren’t even aware that they are whipping your backside when they do it. They simply have their own set of rules, and sometimes they refuse to bend them. I think we are a little too quick sometimes to give a gobbler all the credit when we lose the battle. We just accept it as “he whipped me” and go to the house. The truth of the matter is if we try to figure out why, he may be a little less fortunate the next time we meet him.

I also believe if you have gained “home field advantage,” you are more likely to learn a particular turkey’s habits than if you just hunt an area every now and then. Some turkeys in certain areas will do the same things, travel the same routes and roost in the same areas as their ancestors did years before. If you know an area well enough, you will soon realize how true that is, even on public ground. And you will understand why it is so.

A good example of habits passed down occurred last spring while hunting with longtime friend Jake Hill. We were hunting a very familiar piece Cedar Creek WMA property one early April morning. The daylight chorus we had hoped to hear was nonexistent. After setting up and going through the motions for an hour or so, we finally heard a gobble a few hundred yards down the creek. He sounded as if he was on the other side of it, and I was pretty happy about it, too. Usually I’m not too happy about a bird on the opposite side of a creek, but this bird had gobbled from a spot I heard birds many times over the years. It was also in close proximity of a place where I knew birds liked to cross this creek. In fact, I had called birds across it several times over the years.

We hurriedly made our way toward the area I normally worked birds from across the creek. The first call I made got jumped on by two birds. One bird was on the hill above and behind us a couple of hundred yards away, the other bird was across the creek. I told Jake to pay close attention, and watch for the bird to slip in from across the creek. Five minutes passed when I called again, and the bird across the creek hammered it. He had cut the distance nearly in half and was probably only 150 yards or so away. The only thing between us now was the creek.

Ten minutes passed when Jake spotted the bird slipping in from his right. We watched as the bird stood strutting and drumming at 30 yards for the next several minutes before he gave in and strolled by Jake at just less than 30 yards on our side of the creek. This was his last stroll as Jake rolled the good 3-year-old.

It was a case of knowing what birds like to do in a certain area. It was history repeating itself.

Growing your own: When I first started turkey hunting, I had nothing but public ground to hunt. That’s fine, and I was proud to have that. I still am, but there was always a piece of me that wished I had the luxury of occasionally being able to hunt some unmolested private-land birds. Sometimes I will get an invitation to join someone on a piece of private property, but most of my turkey hunting takes place on public ground. My family owns roughly 160 acres and is made up of a slightly diverse landscape. A few different ages of pine make up the majority of the property, and there are four or five sections of hardwoods. I grew up deer hunting the property, but I decided a few years ago to try hard to get the turkeys to take notice.

Three years ago I planted eight food plots. The turkeys found it pretty much immediately, and last year I called up the first turkey that ever died on our property for my 10-year-old nephew, Walt. Last year, prior to the season, I conducted a controlled burn, and the results have been as hoped for. My youngest son, Andy, and I both killed birds on the property last year.

Not only is it rewarding just hearing a bird gobble on your own property, it should be a piece of ground you know better than any other.

One morning in March of this past spring, Devereaux, my oldest son, and I headed to a particular field on the property where Andy had taken a bird a couple of days earlier. We were set up well before daylight, and I can’t explain how excited I was to be hunting there that day. We didn’t have to wait long before a gobbler began cranking it up in a small hardwood head on another field about 150 yards away. He was where we thought he would be, but he was in a spot the birds liked to roost often, and as a result, we have decided not to hunt that particular field. So, I did a fly-down cackle, and he humored me with a hearty reply. He too was soon on the ground, but within a few minutes it was clear he had hens with him.

“No big deal,” I remember thinking. “He’s going to come over here anyway.” That’s when he threw me a curve and headed off in the opposite direction. He went silent for the next 45 minutes or so and then gobbled about eight or 10 times in a period of about 10 minutes from about 300 yards away. Then he went silent again. I thought about moving at this point but talked myself into staying put.

Thirty more minutes passed when I decided to call to see where he was. He answered from about 300 yards away, but this time he had traveled in a direction that made me think he just might be coming to see us. Ten minutes passed when the bird hammered again inside 100 yards. I knew he was likely to show up soon. I answered him, and within a couple of minutes a big white head came bobbing up the roadbed that leads into the field. Two hens passed him and made their way into the field in front of us. Five minutes later, he was flopping on the ground at 40 yards. I had killed my first bird on my own property! It was one of the most rewarding hunts of my career. When I was standing over the bird I remember thinking that every time he had gobbled, I knew precisely where he was standing. That’s some valuable information.

Now, I won’t try to convince you that you can live in downtown suburbia and own an acre of land that you can turn into a turkey-hunting paradise. I will tell you though that if you have a piece of hunting property and you want the turkeys to take notice, you can work toward that goal and maybe make it a reality. Food plots and control burns are great ways to grab a turkey’s attention. If you are low on budget, managing openings just by bushogging alone can help. Control burning is still one of the cheaper wildlife-management tools there is. Managing openings and creating more open understudy and promoting new growth through control burns will make your property more attractive to wild turkeys. Remember, generally, turkeys aren’t real crazy about thickets.

If money isn’t a concern, control burns and plot planting is the way to go. The same plots you plant in the fall for deer are often planted in the same things a turkey enjoys eating as well. Clovers, wheat, rye and other seedy head plants are turkey pleasers. However, my No. 1 choice for turkey plots would be chufa. It isn’t called turkey gold for nothing.

It’s all a matter of what you are willing to do to create home-field advantage. Whether you own 50 or 1,000 acres, or hunt thousands of acres of public land, you can create an advantage that will pay dividends for years to come.

Written By: Donald Devereaux Jarrett