The thing I hate about Leap Year is that it makes for one more day that you have to wait until spring gobbler season opens.
I mean how many times can I count my shells, make sure I still cannot master a mouth call and check the closet to see if anybody has stolen my hunting vest?
I can’t help it. Hunting gobblers is what I like.
A lot. Last year I hunted 23 days in two states.
I know I’m probably repeating myself here, but you’ll have that when a guy does 1,500 or so of these columns.
One of the very best attributes of spring gobbler season is that it gets warmer rather than colder as the season progresses, though the weather in some years has challenged that postulate.
Not only does the clime climb, but the woods itself modifies, going from something akin to a winter setting on opening day to a lazy, hazy, crazy day of summer when the action stops in late May.
It’s a long shot, I know, but I am hoping for my first three-gobbler license year in Maryland. I can hope for that because I got a nice 2-year-old, 19-pound longbeard in November and because it has been legal for a couple years to kill one turkey in the fall and two bearded birds the following spring.
Hope springs eternal, especially hope in the spring.
I try to be realistic, yet hopeful. My goal each season is to take one gobbler. Once that bird is tagged, my hope is for a second bird, etc.
I plan to take afield the old family Ithaca Model 37, you know, the shotgun that kills on one end and cripples on the other. No recoil pad on that old mule. Tuck down nice and tight on the old stock and let ‘er fly.
I got my first spring gobbler with that long-barreled 12 gauge, a bird with 1.25-inch, needle sharp spurs in 1988 near McCoole. Checked it in at the Rawlings General Store, owned and operated at that time by Wally and Eileen Mahle. Wally, a former Green Bay Packer, died in 2008.
And the old store, a Rawlings fixture for a long time across the street from the post office, has since been razed.
Don’t forget that there are two Sundays this spring when we can hunt for gobblers in Allegany and Garrett counties, and that includes public as well as private lands. They are April 29 and May 6.
There were 287 spring gobblers bagged in Allegany County a year ago, but that was down from the take in 2010 of 327. There were 339 bearded birds killed in Garrett County in 2011 and 345 in 2010.
Although more gobblers have been killed annually in Garrett than in Allegany, the harvest in Allegany County is greater per square mile.
There are at least 30,000 turkeys in Maryland, according to the Wildlife & Heritage Service.
The Maryland season is April 18 through May 23. From May 10 through the end of the season, gobblers may be hunted from one-half hour before sunrise until sunset. There is a noon stop time for hunting April 18 through May 9.
The West Virginia season takes place April 23 through May 19.
Hunters in both states have been relatively accident free in recent years. This would be a good spring to continue that tradition. Protect yourself and others this season.
Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.
Michael A Sawyers - Outdoors
Related Photos
-
MIKE SAWYERS
Let’s get ready to gobble!
- Michael A Sawyers - Outdoors
-
-
Md. has greater natural resources police presence than W.Va., Pa.
Whether you hunt and fish
in West Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Maryland or all three,
I’m sure
you have
heard the
lament that
more natural
resources
police officers
are
needed. -
FEATHERED NIRVANA
They’ve started, you know. The gobbler seasons.
Well, actually, one has, that being Maryland, and two will, one in West Virginia tomorrow and then another in Pennsylvania soon after that. -
Bill that would up cost of Md. hunting license dies
The senators and delegates who converge on Annapolis each January and stay there for three months as they decide how we should live our lives would do well to subscribe to a portion of the Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians.
-
The size of the fight in the dog
At the beginning of my book, “Native Queen,” there is an author’s note in which I point out that I believe, as did my father, that there are three seasons in a year, not four.
-
New W.Va. doe hunt works out
The new, three-day, October, firearms hunt for antlerless deer instituted by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources accounted for a harvest of 3,525 animals, according to Chris Ryan, supervisor of Game Management Services.
-
W.Va. ag chief has coyote plan
The only thing I can figure is that Walt Helmick has been watching the Diamond Jim thing unfold in Maryland during the past several years.
-
SMILE You just might be standing in front of somone’s trail camera
I admit to a little bit of obsessive behavior, though in my mind I am still within the normal range.
-
Bird dog survives killer trap, keeps hunting
Bari is one lucky 33-pound, female French Brittany spaniel, having survived unfazed the jaws of a Conibear trap this past November near Piney Reservoir in eastern Garrett County.
-
These are spring’s true harbingers
Unfortunately, there is a chronological coefficient to energy, otherwise I would be primed and raring to go for the upcoming season of Hillbilly Surf and Turf, the dynamic duo of hunting and fishing, the cool combination of feathers and fins.
-
All points bulletin! Deer antler bill introduced at Md. General Assembly
If House Bill 990 passes the Maryland General Assembly and gets signed by the governor, people who hunt deer in Garrett County will all become trophy hunters.
- More Michael A Sawyers - Outdoors Headlines
-
