Where will you be on Wednesday, April 15, at precisely 5:46 a.m.? If you drew a turkey tag for the first period of the 2009 spring turkey season, you might be tucked up against the trunk of a hardwood tree adjacent to a roost sanctuary of tall white pines or sitting comfortably in a heated ground blind.
Before you leans a freshly minted slope of green, wide-open spring landscape about to get a good-morning kiss from a warming sun emerging from its fiery eastern bedroom. Perhaps reluctantly, your boss has given you the day off to pursue a wild turkey, the wiliest of all upland game birds.
A grand total of 225,414 permits have been issued for the 2009 season that ends May 24. The numbers include just less than 75,000 in Zone One that encompasses all of Green, Iowa, Grant and Lafayette Counties. Zone Two, extending east and north into Rock and Dane Counties, offers more than 34,000 tags.
According to Department of Natural Resources management strategies, permit levels are set to allow the maximum recreational opportunities without affecting the turkey population, while minimizing hunter interference problems. Permit levels reflect the amount of turkey habitat and turkey population densities and distribution in each zone.
In Zone One, an additional 30,452 permits will be available for the last three periods (May 6-10), (May 13-17) and (May 20-24). Zone Two will have 4,382 additional permits available, all of them for Period F.
The sale of leftover spring turkey permits will begin on Monday, March 23, from 10 a.m. to midnight. To avoid overloading the distribution system, permits will be sold one zone per day for the first five days, beginning with Zone One. After the fifth day, hunters may purchase one permit per day until the zone sells out or the season ends.
The remaining permits will be sold for an additional $10 each ($15 non-resident). Permits are available through any license sales location, DNR service center or on line at http://dnr.wi.gov.
Disabled hunter permits are available for several state parks, including New Glarus Woods State Park (Zone 1K) in Green County and Belmont Mound (1J) in Lafayette County. Permits for the designated disabled hunts will only be available through a DNR Service Center.
For many of us, there were no bragging rights last year. In what is now Zone One, approximately 23 percent of turkey hunters were successful in 2008 with a harvest of approximately 16,000 birds. Hunters in the new Zone two enjoyed a 30 percent harvest rate in 2008 with just less than 9,000 birds harvested.
For the ever-optimistic, turkey-hunting devotee, however, this year will surely be different. These folks are already fantasizing about that outsized gobbler trotting in to investigate the sounds emanating from a ground blind or camo-clad tree stump look-alike.
Some might be planning a visit to the annual Deer and Turkey Expo at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, April 3-5. This is the 25th year for the Expo, which will offer a slew of exhibits and seminars, including one entitled "Learn to Think like a Turkey and win the Gobbler Mind Game."
Admission is $10 ($7 for youth 12-18 bringing proof of hunter safety completion). Kids under 11 get in free on Friday's Family Night. Get more information about the Deer and Turkey Expo at www.deerinfo.com.
It's also a good time to break out that assortment of box, slate, mouth, and wing bone calls gathering dust in your hunting chest. I began some heavy duty practicing with a couple of box and slate calls the other night in the bunkhouse with a captive audience of surprisingly disinterested card players.
While there were no (loud) complaints, neither did anyone swoon over what seemed to me rather turkey-like purrs, clucks and yelps. Perhaps the boys were just grumpy over Monroe's Steve Waldon and Richard Radock of Blanchardville bilking us out of our truck payment money.
- Lee Fahrney is the Times outdoors writer. He can be reached at (608) 967-2208 or at fiveoaks@mhtc.net.
Before you leans a freshly minted slope of green, wide-open spring landscape about to get a good-morning kiss from a warming sun emerging from its fiery eastern bedroom. Perhaps reluctantly, your boss has given you the day off to pursue a wild turkey, the wiliest of all upland game birds.
A grand total of 225,414 permits have been issued for the 2009 season that ends May 24. The numbers include just less than 75,000 in Zone One that encompasses all of Green, Iowa, Grant and Lafayette Counties. Zone Two, extending east and north into Rock and Dane Counties, offers more than 34,000 tags.
According to Department of Natural Resources management strategies, permit levels are set to allow the maximum recreational opportunities without affecting the turkey population, while minimizing hunter interference problems. Permit levels reflect the amount of turkey habitat and turkey population densities and distribution in each zone.
In Zone One, an additional 30,452 permits will be available for the last three periods (May 6-10), (May 13-17) and (May 20-24). Zone Two will have 4,382 additional permits available, all of them for Period F.
The sale of leftover spring turkey permits will begin on Monday, March 23, from 10 a.m. to midnight. To avoid overloading the distribution system, permits will be sold one zone per day for the first five days, beginning with Zone One. After the fifth day, hunters may purchase one permit per day until the zone sells out or the season ends.
The remaining permits will be sold for an additional $10 each ($15 non-resident). Permits are available through any license sales location, DNR service center or on line at http://dnr.wi.gov.
Disabled hunter permits are available for several state parks, including New Glarus Woods State Park (Zone 1K) in Green County and Belmont Mound (1J) in Lafayette County. Permits for the designated disabled hunts will only be available through a DNR Service Center.
For many of us, there were no bragging rights last year. In what is now Zone One, approximately 23 percent of turkey hunters were successful in 2008 with a harvest of approximately 16,000 birds. Hunters in the new Zone two enjoyed a 30 percent harvest rate in 2008 with just less than 9,000 birds harvested.
For the ever-optimistic, turkey-hunting devotee, however, this year will surely be different. These folks are already fantasizing about that outsized gobbler trotting in to investigate the sounds emanating from a ground blind or camo-clad tree stump look-alike.
Some might be planning a visit to the annual Deer and Turkey Expo at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, April 3-5. This is the 25th year for the Expo, which will offer a slew of exhibits and seminars, including one entitled "Learn to Think like a Turkey and win the Gobbler Mind Game."
Admission is $10 ($7 for youth 12-18 bringing proof of hunter safety completion). Kids under 11 get in free on Friday's Family Night. Get more information about the Deer and Turkey Expo at www.deerinfo.com.
It's also a good time to break out that assortment of box, slate, mouth, and wing bone calls gathering dust in your hunting chest. I began some heavy duty practicing with a couple of box and slate calls the other night in the bunkhouse with a captive audience of surprisingly disinterested card players.
While there were no (loud) complaints, neither did anyone swoon over what seemed to me rather turkey-like purrs, clucks and yelps. Perhaps the boys were just grumpy over Monroe's Steve Waldon and Richard Radock of Blanchardville bilking us out of our truck payment money.
- Lee Fahrney is the Times outdoors writer. He can be reached at (608) 967-2208 or at fiveoaks@mhtc.net.
