After seeing the harvest numbers from Maryland’s autumn turkey season I am more convinced than ever that the only way to go is to separate the bag limit in the fall from the bag limit in the spring.

During this year’s seven-day fall hunt, only 150 turkeys were killed. That’s down 30 percent from just one year ago when 215 were taken. There were 67 tagged in Allegany County, 53 in Garrett and 30 in Washington a couple weeks ago.

A quick refresher on the way the Maryland Wildlife and Heritage Service sets turkey bag limits. With a hunting license year that runs summer to summer, the fall season comes first. Hunters may kill one turkey, any kind of turkey, in the fall, but only in the three westernmost counties. Hunters who kill one turkey will then be limited to one bearded bird the following spring, statewide. If you don’t kill a fall turkey, you may tag and bag two gobblers in the spring.

I know. I can hear you now, saying “Well if the turkey kill is going down in the fall there must be fewer turkeys, so why would you want hunters to have a larger bag limit?”

Very good question. I believe that the turkey kill in the fall is going down not because there are fewer birds, but because there are fewer hunters going into the woodlands after them.

For years now, West Virginia’s Division of Natural Resources has allowed hunters to take two spring birds and one fall bird in what the Wildlife Resources Section refers to as the traditional turkey counties. Read that as Mineral, Grant, Hampshire, Hardy and other counties in the northeastern part of the Mountain State. Those regulations have not hurt the turkey population by one tailfeather.

Neither would similar regulations hurt the mountain thunder chickens in Almost Maryland.

Bob Long is the chief yelp and gobble guy for the Maryland wildlife agency. He told me Wednesday that there will be some consideration given to separating the fall and spring bag limits for the hunting seasons of 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. No promises, no proposals yet. Just some consideration, Long pointed out.

Get this. Long said there has been a long-term decline in hunter participation in the fall turkey season in Maryland. During the past 15 years there has been a drop of 75 percent. If you look at the past 25 years, the downward spiral is a whopping 87 percent.

“The decline is being seen in all states with fall seasons, though not as drastic a decline as in Maryland,” Long said. “Hunters have bigger and better things to do. The early muzzleloader season, the archery season. The decline in fall turkey hunters parallels the decline in all small game hunting seen throughout the country.”

Long said that about 12 to 15 percent of the spring gobbler hunters kill two bearded birds. “I figure that 50 additional turkeys would be harvested in the spring if we separated the bag limits,” he said. “That’s not statistically significant.”

What would separating the limits do to the fall hunt?

Long said fall hunters kill 1 to 2 percent of the population of birds. “Anything below 5 percent is a safe, conservative strategy,” he said.

Long said a doubling of the fall harvest wouldn’t be a biological problem. A doubling of the harvest in Allegany County from this year’s total would amount to 134 birds, still substantially below the harvest numbers of 300-plus and 400-plus from years ago.

Fall hunting for turkeys, rabbit hunting, squirrel hunting and grouse hunting require substantial physical exertion for the amount of game meat a person brings out of the woods. Long thinks that plays a role when hunters decide what to pursue.

“Hunting is not about bringing home meat now as much as it used to be,” he said. “It’s more about having a picture to send to a friend and having a memory of a deer that was tagged. A big buck fits that. An 8-pound hen turkey doesn’t.”

I really enjoy fall hunting for turkeys, including a fall hen, but I realize that a working man has to make decisions about how to spend his limited hunting time. I agree with Long. The early muzzleloader season, bow season and firearms season for deer will continue to account for most of the vacation time signed for at most places of employment.

It’s time to split the bag limits.

CContact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.