Turkey Season Starts Monday Throughout The State Of Maine

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Turkey Season Starts Monday Throughout The State

AUGUSTA, Maine – Spring turkey season starts on Monday, May 2 throughout the state, and youth hunters have their own day on this past Saturday, April 30. With this year’s milder than usual winter, hunters should be seeing a lot of birds.

“This was an easy winter on turkeys, even up in northern Maine,” said IFW game bird biologist Kelsey Sullivan. “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.

“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 started in the 1970s by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

“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.”

  The estimated turkey population in Maine is 62,000 and the harvest in 2016 should be about 13,000 birds. I rate Maine as a B+ in the Country for Wild Turkey hunting and a reminder that there is NO Sunday wild turkey hunting in Maine, according to Wayne G. Barber, host of the OUTDOOR SCENE.

Maine Guide Lorenda DayCoombs

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 nonresidents. This permit allows turkey hunters to take up to two wild turkeys in the spring, and an additional two turkeys in the fall. Legal hunting hours for turkey hunting stretch from ½ hour before sunrise and ½ hour after sunset. The spring season runs from May 2 until June 4.

While the turkey season is open throughout the state in all wildlife management districts, hunters should note that that there is a split season in northern Maine in WMDs 1-6, as well as one turkey bag limit in WMDs 1-6 and 8. Hunters may take two bearded turkeys, but no more than one of these bearded turkeys can come from WMDs 1-6 or 8.

If you are turkey hunting in northern Maine, in WMDs 1-6, turkey hunters in are assigned to either Season A or Season B based on their year of birth.  During “even” numbered calendar years such as this (2016), hunters with “even” birth years will be authorized to hunt during Season A (May 2-7, 2016 and May 16-21, 2016 this year); hunters with “odd” birth years will be authorized to hunt during Season B (May 9-14, 2016 and May 23-28, 2016). All turkey hunters can hunt the last week (May 30- June 4, 2016).

During “odd” numbered calendar years (2017, 2019, etc.), hunters with “odd” birth years will be authorized to hunt during Season A; hunters with “even” birth years will be authorized to hunt during Season B. Many turkey hunters are familiar with this split season as it was in place statewide prior to 2007. More information and WMD maps are available at www.mefishwildlife.com.

The Department strongly encourages all turkey hunters to reach out to landowners before hunting. Please remember to ask first before accessing private land, and respect any and all requests of the landowners.