Maine’s Spring Turkey Hunting Season Begins Monday

Spring turkey season starts Monday, and with this year’s milder than usual winter, hunters should be seeing a lot of birds, Maine wildlife experts say.

“This was an easy winter on turkeys, even up in northern Maine,” Inland Fisheries & Wildlife game bird biologist Kelsey Sullivan said in a news release on Thursday. “We had good survival rates through the winter and this was on top of a good production year for turkeys last spring.”

The light snow meant a lot of open ground where turkeys could feed through the winter, resulting in higher survival rates and healthy birds, the release said.

“There are a lot of younger birds around, and the weights on some of them are impressive,” said Sullivan, who had captured and weighed some year-old jakes earlier this spring. “We had some healthy 14-15 pound jakes and even measured one that was 19 pounds.”

Wild turkeys are a wildlife success story in Maine. Once gone completely from Maine landscapes, they are now a familiar sight in all Maine’s 16 counties, thanks to a reintroduction and management plan the department started in the 1970s, according to Maine wildlife experts.

“Maine has some excellent turkey hunting,” said Sullivan. “Success rates are very good, the birds are lightly hunted compared to other states, and you can hunt turkeys throughout the state.”

With a valid Maine big game or small game hunting license, turkey hunters can purchase a wild turkey permit for just $20 for both residents and non-residents. This permit allows turkey hunters to take up to two wild turkeys in the spring and an additional two turkeys in the fall.

The spring season runs from May 2 to June 4. For more information log onto www.mefishwildlife.com.