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Missouri - Memorial Day is an even bigger deal for hunters and anglers than it is for other Missourians. That is the weekend when squirrel season opens and anglers can keep legal-sized black bass in most southern Missouri streams.
Missouri’s squirrel and black bass seasons open on the same day, the fourth Saturday in May, each year. To take full advantage of these seasons, it helps to be familiar with the regulations for each.
Squirrels
Squirrel hunting regulations remain unchanged from last year, with a daily limit of 10 and a possession limit of 20 fox or gray squirrels in the aggregate. “In the aggregate” means you can take any combination of fox and gray squirrels, so long as you do not exceed 10 squirrels in one day. If you bag a daily limit two days in a row, you have a possession limit of 20 squirrels. After that, you must eat or give away some squirrels before going hunting again in order to stay within the possession limit.
Hunters can pursue squirrels from May 24 through Feb. 15, 2015, with rifles, shotguns, archery equipment, or atlatls. Summer foliage makes rifle shots more difficult than in late fall and winter, when leaves no longer obscure a shooter’s view. As a result, shotguns are the preferred method for many hunters during the early part of the season.
Hunters also can take squirrels with cage-type traps, as long as they label traps with their full name and address. Squirrel traps also must have openings measuring 144 square inches or less, for instance, 12 inches by 12 inches. Hunters must attend their traps daily. The same regulations apply to rabbits and groundhogs during their respective seasons.
Black Bass
The bass catch-and-keep season in southern Missouri streams applies to largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass. Anglers may catch these species legally all year, anywhere in the state. They may keep legal-sized bass caught from impoundments all year long, statewide. However, from March 1 through the Friday before the fourth Saturday in May, you may only keep black bass caught in streams if you are:
On the Mississippi River
North of the south bank of the Missouri River
In that portion of southeast Missouri south and east of Cape Girardeau following Highways 74 and 25, U.S. Highways 60, 67, and 160 and the west bank of the Little Black River to the Arkansas state line, or
On the St. Francis River downstream from Wappapello Dam
In the rest of the state, black-bass fishing is strictly catch-and-release from March 1 until the fourth Saturday in May.
In most of the state’s waters, the daily limit on black bass is six, with a possession limit of 12. Black bass taken from streams must be at least 12 inches long in most areas. There is no statewide length limit on bass taken from impoundments. However, special length and daily limits apply on many lakes and streams. To ensure that you keep only legal bass, you must check for special regulations on the waters you intend to fish. You can find these posted at areas with special regulations and in the 2014 Summary of Missouri Fishing Regulations, which is available from fishing permit vendors.
An abundance of stream accesses maintained by the Missouri Department of Conservation statewide makes it easy to combine float-fishing and squirrel hunting. It is important to remember, however, that a hunting permit does not give you the right to trespass on private property bordering streams. The best places for this dual sport are where streams run through conservation areas or national forest land.
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Imperial, Missouri – The Dexter Senior High School Tennis duo of Ethan Flowers and Noah Kronk were dynamic together on the court at the sectionals in Imperial, Missouri. They competed in the Class 1 Sectional 1 individual doubles on Tuesday and defeated the #1 seeded doubles team from District 2.
Festus High School’s Matt Hawkins and Austin Gray were defeated in three sets (6-3, 3-6, 7-5).
As one of only 16 teams from Missouri, the dynamic duo will now advance to the state Tennis Doubles Tournament in Springfield, Missouri to be held on Friday, May 30th and Saturday, May 31st.
Ethan Flowers is a sophomore at Dexter High School. Noah Kronk is a junior.
This will be the 6th straight year that Dexter has been represented at the State Tennis Tournament. Congratulations Ethan and Noah!! Bring home a State Title!!!
The Dexter community is extremely proud of these athletes and look forward to seeing them on the court!
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Missouri - Hunters posted the third spring turkey harvest increase in a row, bettering last year’s number by more than 1,000 birds.
Hunters checked 43,273 turkeys during Missouri’s regular spring turkey season April 21 through May 11. Top harvest counties were Texas with 938 birds checked, Franklin with 921, and Laclede with 736.
Hunters age 6 through 15 checked 4,332 turkeys during the youth season April 12 and 13, bringing the 2014 spring harvest total to 47,605. That is the third consecutive increase since 2011, when the combined youth and regular season harvest was 42,226.
Favorable weather throughout much of this year’s spring turkey season helped hunters, according to Resource Scientist Jason Isabelle with the Missouri Department of Conservation. He says this year’s harvest was also affected by improvements in turkey production.
“Prior to 2011, the state’s turkey population had struggled through four consecutive years of poor hatches,” says Isabelle. “The improved hatches of 2011 and 2012 resulted in an increase in the number of adult gobblers available for hunters this spring.”
County-by-county spring turkey harvest totals are available at mdc.mo.gov/node/263.
The Conservation Department recorded seven firearms-related spring turkey hunting incidents during the regular season and one during the youth season. Two of the incidents in the regular season were fatal. Five of the seven incidents, including one of the fatalities, involved shooters who mistook other hunters for turkeys.
Missouri’s safest spring turkey season was last year, when the Conservation Department recorded only one incident, which was nonfatal. The worst was 1986, with 31 reported incidents and two fatalities.
In the 10 years from 1985 through 1994, the Conservation Department recorded an average of 17.3 spring turkey hunting incidents per year. The 10-year average from 2005 through 2014 was 4.8 per year. Fatal incidents averaged .6 per year during both 10-year periods. Conservation Department Hunter Education Coordinator Kyle Lairmore says these statistics demonstrate the importance of hunter education in preventing hunting injuries.
“Since the inception of hunter education training, which became mandatory in 1987, more than 1 million Missourians have received formal firearms and safety training,” says Lairmore. “They make up a larger percentage of the hunting public every year, and that increase has been paralleled by a more than five-fold decrease in spring turkey hunting incidents. A season like the one we just had reminds us that we still have work to do, but it’s important to remember how far we have come.”
Lairmore said volunteer hunter-education instructors and Conservation Department employees are responsible for dramatic gains in hunting safety over the past 27 years. Simply put, he says, “They save lives.”
The Conservation Department’s First Turkey Program lets turkey hunters commemorate their first turkey kill with a certificate suitable for framing. You can even add a photo of the proud hunter with his or her bird. To create a first-turkey certificate, visit mdc.mo.gov/node/10469. The same site has forms for a youth’s first deer, as well as first deer/turkey certificates for adults.
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Stoddard County, Missouri - The SCAA All-Conference Softball Team has been announced along with honorable mention, player of the year and coaches of the year.
1st Team All-Conference Softball
Tori Lowery – Bernie
Hannah Clark – Advance
Josie Long – Woodland
Kathlyn Cooper – Woodland
Blakely Bradshaw – Bernie
Sydney Bailey – Advance
Mara Grindstaff – Woodland
Dakota Silliman – Dexter
Lara Spitzer – Bernie
Madison Brown – Advance
Honorable Mention
Ashley Brown – Dexter
Morgan Wilkinson – Bloomfield
Phoenix Richard – Puxico
Danielle Roberts – Puxico
Kendra Stevenson – Dexter
Mara Mayo – Bloomfield
Players of the Year
Tori Lowery - Bernie
Co-Coaches of the Year
Brad Botsch – Bernie
James Hamlin – Advance
Andrea Arnold – Woodland
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Dexter, Missouri - The Lady Bearcat Basketball summer camp will be held at the Dexter High School on May 27th - 29th.
Girls entering kindergarten through third grade next year can attend camp from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., fourth- through sixth-graders from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and seventh- and eighth-graders from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Registration is $25 a person. Contact Dexter girls basketball coach Chad Allen for more information at callen@dexter.k12.mo.us or 573-421-4571.
Camp features team concepts, shooting instruction, ball handling and passing instructions, contests, defensive concepts, age grouping and games. Certificates for contest winners and a camp t-shirt will be given to attendees.This is an excellent camp, coached by Coach of the Year Chad Allen!!
