This weekend will be Missouri’s youth turkey season, and hunters are going to have their work cut out for them to find success.
The season runs Saturday and Sunday, and, unlike during the regular spring season, youths can hunt all day, from one-half hour before sunrise until sunset.
If a youngster takes a gobbler this weekend, it counts toward the spring season limit of two turkeys, and they must wait until the second week of the season to take another bird.
“Be sure to do your homework as far as scouting goes, and make sure your gun is patterned,” recommends Butler County Conservation Agent Frank Campa.
For adult mentors, it’s important to remember to make the hunt fun for youngsters.
If conditions are anything like they have been in Tennessee this week, gobbling still is pretty sporadic, though it has started to pick up the last few days.
The bigger problem for Missouri’s youth turkey hunters, and regular-season hunters in another week, is going to be simply finding birds. Both Butler County conservation agents have spent a lot of time in the Cane Ridge area and other parts of the county and neither has heard a bird yet this spring.
“I expect most of the harvest for the youth weekend to take place on private property along creek bottoms, due to poor mast production last fall,” said Campa. “There’s no reason for them to be on the ridges because there’s very little food.
“I’m less optimistic this year than ever before.”
Poor production over the last several years, according to Department of Conservation biologist Jason Isabelle, has resulted in low bird numbers, especially the more vocal 2-year-olds.
“We’ve had three years of very poor production. When that happens, you’re going to see the effects on turkey harvest for several years until production and turkey numbers rebound,” Isabelle said. “Hunters should be prepared to put in a bit more effort to be successful this year.”
The weather forecast for the youth season weekend looks much warmer than it has been lately, which is a good thing. However, there are chances for rain both days, especially Sunday. Wind also could be a problem.
“Weather conditions should be better than last year, when we had snow for the youth season and only took three birds on opening day, so we may have a better harvest,” Campa said, trying to remain hopeful.
One thing to keep in mind is the woods are really open right now, so you’ll have to be careful not to get skylined or seen moving around.
Any gobbler taken should be Telechecked by 10 p.m. on the day taken or before it’s processed.
__Frustrating Hunting__
As mentioned, a buddy and I have been in Tennessee all week chasing longbeards, and it’s been tough here as well.
It’s our first trip to the Volunteer State, and we’re pretty much winging it on public land.
Despite the cold conditions and low bird numbers, we’ve had a few close calls, but the gobblers have been henned up badly. Most of the boys have at least eight to 10 girls with them most of the time.
We’ve been into birds every day, but it’s just hard to compete when a tom has that many girlfriends surrounding him on the roost.
Then again, we have seen several hens without gobblers, including one Sunday evening (Tennessee has all-day hunting) which walked across a field and laid down right next to our jake decoy. Apparently she thought he was one good-looking dude.
What’s really proven to be our undoing has been a few locals running the roads at daylight, squawking like a sick Canada goose and being particularly careless and noisy. It’s quite interesting to hear a bird gobble steadily on the roost, only to clam up when someone stops his noisy truck at the top of the ridge and calls loudly from the road (because, you know, loud tail pipes, slamming doors, raucous yelping and the sound of gravel being thrown around are a natural mix in the turkey woods).
Don’t get me wrong — running and gunning the roads is one thing when the timber is greened up, and it can be very effective, but it may not be so smart when the woods are this open and the birds can see you standing next to the truck. We literally saw it shut the gobblers up every single morning.
Just as bad, and even more frustrating, was when we were set up within 40 yards of four gobblers on the roost in a stand of tall pine trees Tuesday morning and another guy literally drove his pickup, right at daylight, off the road and up a horse trail to nearly within talking distance, scattering the whole flock. We had put in quite a bit of time learning those birds’ habits and travel patterns and it was all over in an instant.
Such is public-land hunting, but a turkey fanatic always presses on because the spring season is so short.
__Lakes Up Yet Again__
Storms late last week put both Wappapello and Clearwater lakes on the rise again, but it looks like they topped out pretty quickly.
As best as I can tell, Wappapello crested Tuesday just under 363.5 feet, about 3.5 feet above normal summer pool.
Clearwater appears to have also crested Tuesday at around 505 feet, a full 11 feet above normal.
Fishing may be hampered for a few days at either lake, but it shouldn’t be too bad.
__Tourney Winners__
Twenty-eight teams fished the Angler’s Choice tournament Sunday at Wappapello.
James Goodpasture and Scott Fischer had the winning weight, bringing 18.5 pounds to the scales. They were aided by the day’s second-largest bass, weighing in at 5.83 pounds.
Second place was earned by Don Lynn and Larry Thurman with 12.45 pounds, while Danny Livingston and Dirk Livingston captured third place with 11.94 pounds.
Paul Henderson and his son, Kason Henderson, took fourth place with 9.62 pounds, and the team of Steve Seiter and Steve Hardin earned fifth place with 8.98 pounds.
The top 10 finishing places were rounded out by Jamie Thurston and Colton Thurston with 7.7 pounds, Warron Manion and Colton Jennings with 7.18 pounds, Kenneth Williams and Larry Williams with 6.33 pounds, Bruce Hutson and Adam Hutson with 5.45 pounds and Gale Breckenridge and Doug Cheatam with 5.43 pounds.
The biggest bass of the day, at 6.71 pounds, was caught by Thurston and Thurston.
The Angler’s Choice circuit’s next event is coming up quickly on April 14.
__Coon Club Events__
The Butler County Coon Club will host two events this weekend.
On Friday, a UKC bench show will kick off at 6 p.m., followed by a hunt at 8.
On Saturday, the club will hold a PKC hunt at 8 p.m. and another at midnight.
All club events are based out of the organization’s clubhouse off County Road 607, south of Poplar Bluff. For more information, call Terry Uhl at 583-714-1624.