Special youth hunts lead to good waterfowl stories

Last week­end was the youth water­fowl sea­son and I just have to share a story with you.

Although my boys and I were a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed with the lack of ducks we had around for week­end, they were able to har­vest a few wood ducks and the Canada Goose action kept the guns hop­ping. It can be tough to do well on ducks in these parts in Sep­tem­ber. How­ever, ducks or no ducks, we still had a great time.

On Sun­day, the goose action was just right where the birds were com­ing in as sin­gles and decoy­ing right into the pocket where we planned it. The boys were tak­ing turns har­vest­ing their birds and we were hav­ing a good time. One sin­gle goose came in while we were a lit­tle dis­tracted and although it was Zane’s turn to take the shot,

Zach, my old­est, was in his brother’s way so he went ahead and har­vested the bird. After that bird, we had a lit­tle lull in the action and Zach got to ask­ing me about all the duck and goose bands that I have been for­tu­nate enough to col­lect over the many years of waterfowling.

I was explain­ing to the boys that duck bands are very rare and hard to come by in these parts and har­vest­ing a goose with a leg band isn’t quite as com­mon as it was ten years ago. Zach was very curi­ous and expressed that he couldn’t wait to har­vest his first banded bird.

About five min­utes later a sin­gle goose was fly­ing down the mid­dle of the lake. A few quick notes on my goose call got him to turn his atten­tion to us and he came right into the pocket just as the oth­ers before him had. Since Zane’s turn got skipped on the pre­vi­ous bird, I told him to go ahead an shoot when­ever he was ready.

One quick shot and the bird was down, so I sent our dog Ice after him. When the dog got back with the bird I flipped it over and saw its leg band, I couldn’t help but howl with laugh­ter. Both boys looked at me like I was crazy and when I pointed to the leg band, son num­ber two started to jump up and down with joy and I am not too sure son num­ber one wasn’t about to cry.

If he hadn’t skipped Zane’s turn on the pre­vi­ous bird, that much desired first band could have been his. Instead, it was his younger brother’s. Such is life and I am quite sure that Zach is tired of me hav­ing such a good time shar­ing that story, but it did cre­ate a mem­ory of a life time and I now have one son who is very proud of his first goose band.

• Besides the water­fowl youth sea­son, other youth sea­sons are com­ing up. It’s a great time to get for youth hunters to learn and improve their hunt­ing skills. The North Zone youth water­fowl sea­son has already occurred but on Nov. 23–24, the South Zone of Ohio will be open for young hunters. Hunters 15 years of age and younger must be accom­pa­nied by a non-hunting adult 18 years or older (no more than two youths per adult).

Hunters age 17 and younger may hunt statewide for rab­bit, pheas­ant and all other legal game in sea­son dur­ing two des­ig­nated week­ends, Oct. 20–21 and Oct. 27–28. Quail also may be taken in 16 des­ig­nated open counties.

Pheas­ant releases for young hunters will occur prior to these dates on the fol­low­ing state wildlife areas: Resthaven, Oxbow, Berlin, Killdeer Plains, Camp Belden, Grand River, Spencer, Welling­ton, Delaware, Dil­lon, Cae­sar Creek, Rush Run, Fallsville, Tif­fin River and Darke, as well as Charlemont Metropark in Lorain County.

A youth deer-gun sea­son will be open statewide, Nov. 17–18. Hunters hold­ing a valid youth hunt­ing license and youth deer per­mit may take deer of either sex dur­ing this sea­son in accor­dance with exist­ing bag and deer-zone lim­its. Young hunters, regard­less of age, must be accom­pa­nied by a non-hunting adult, 18 years or older, when hunt­ing dur­ing this season.

To par­tic­i­pate in the upcom­ing youth hunts, all young hunters must be accom­pa­nied by a non-hunting adult and must abide by all reg­u­lar hunt­ing hours and bag lim­its. A valid 2012–13 youth hunt­ing license, along with the appro­pri­ate per­mits, is required.

• Fall wild turkey hunt­ing opens in 48 Ohio coun­ties on Sat­ur­day, Oct. 13, accord­ing to the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife. The sea­son con­tin­ues through Sun­day, Nov. 25. Hunters har­vested 1,375 wild turkeys dur­ing last year’s fall season.

Accord­ing to Reynolds, Ohio cur­rently has a pop­u­la­tion of approx­i­mately 180,000 wild turkeys. An esti­mated 15,000 peo­ple, not count­ing pri­vate landown­ers hunt­ing on their own prop­erty, will enjoy Ohio’s fall wild turkey season.

Only one turkey of either sex may be taken dur­ing the entire fall sea­son, and a Fall Turkey Hunt­ing Per­mit is required. Hours are one half hour before sun­rise to sun­set. Shot­guns using shot, cross­bows and long­bows are per­mit­ted. Hunt­ing turkeys over bait is pro­hib­ited, and turkeys must be checked by 11:30 p.m. on the day the bird is shot.

All hunters must still report their har­vest of turkeys, but they are no longer required to take their turkey to a check sta­tion for phys­i­cal inspec­tion. Hunters will have three options to com­plete the auto­mated game check: Online at wildohio.com or ohiogamecheck.com; By tele­phone at 877-TAG-ITOH (877–824-4864). This option is only avail­able to those who are required to pur­chase a turkey per­mit to hunt turkeys; At all license agent locations.

Game-check trans­ac­tions will be avail­able online and by tele­phone seven days a week and dur­ing hol­i­days. Landowner hunters who are not required to pur­chase a fall turkey per­mit must use the Inter­net or any license agent to check their turkey.

Hunters who tag their turkey as a landowner har­vest can­not use the phone-in method. Game will be checked in by all autho­rized license sales agents.

Until next time, Good Hunt­ing and Good Fishing!

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Oct 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.