hunting looks good for most of Missouri!
Jefferson City, Missouri - Missouri turkey hunters can expect a good spring season overall according to the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC). The spring turkey hunting season starts with a youth-only weekend April 11-12 for young hunters ages 6-15. The regular spring season runs April 20 through May 10.
“Hunters should generally expect similar opportunities as those during the past several seasons,” said MDC Turkey Biologist Jason Isabelle. “Two-year-old gobblers won’t be as abundant as they were in 2014 in most areas due to lower poult production in 2013, but carry-over from previous years should provide some great hunting.”
Isabelle noted that MDC offers turkey hunting opportunities on more than 500 conservation areas and the state’s diverse landscapes mean turkey numbers often vary by region.
“With good poult production from 2014, jake numbers should be up in northern Missouri this spring, but harvesting an adult gobbler will continue to be a bit more challenging given the decline in bird numbers that the region experienced during the mid-to-late 2000s,” he said.
“Turkey numbers in the Ozarks have been relatively stable for the past several years and the eastern Ozarks has had some of the state’s best turkey production,” Isabelle said. “With good poult production in recent years, we’ve started to see turkey number increase in several southern Missouri counties. Good gobbler numbers and an abundance of public land make this region a good choice for hunters. The western Ozarks and border region further west are likely to have some of the top harvest counties in the state this year.”
He added that prospects are also good for the River Breaks region, which lies just south of the Missouri River and west of the Mississippi River from Osage County east to Jefferson County and south to Cape Girardeau County. “This region encompasses some of the state’s best turkey habitat, and its counties consistently rank among the highest in spring turkey harvest,” he said.
Find detailed information on harvest limits, allowed hunting methods, hunter education requirements, permits, MDC hunting areas, tagging and checking procedures, regulations, and more in MDC’s 2015 Spring Turkey Hunting Regulations and Information booklet available from MDC offices and nature centers, other places where permits are sold, and online at mdc.mo.gov/node/4066
HUNTING SAFETY
Isabelle stressed that hunters can avoid the main cause of turkey-hunting incidents: mistaking or being mistaken by another hunter for game.
“Most turkey hunting incidents involve hunters who fail to positively identify their targets,” said Isabelle. “Before pulling the trigger, be absolutely certain that what you are shooting at is not only a turkey, but a legal turkey, which would be a male turkey or a turkey with a visible beard during the spring season.”
He also advised hunters to wear hunter-orange clothing when moving through woods or fields, particularly when hunting public land, and to always know the locations of all members of a hunting party. “Many turkey hunting incidents actually involve members of the same hunting party,” said Isabelle. “If you’re hunting with someone else and you split up, be certain you know where your hunting partner will be.”
FIRST TURKEY CERTIFICATES
MDC hunting certificates are great ways to memorialize a hunter’s first deer and turkey harvests. Visit mdc.mo.gov/node/10469 to create free commemorative certificates.
Club members began to arrive as early as 4:00 AM to begin preparations for their 6:00 AM crowd. The breakfast ran until 10:00 AM this morning and provided waffles, sausage, coffee and milk for only $5.00.
Brett Miller, the Lions Club President for 2015 shared, this is "another successful waffle day on the books. A special thanks to all the support from the community and the men of Dexter Lions Club for making it happen."Well over 250 members of the community came out on this rainy Saturday to enjoy the breakfast. Many families and friends made it their morning get together to start their weekend.
The Dexter Lions Club is a fun filled civic organization that quietly makes a difference in the community of Dexter. Their members are your everyday community minded guys ....
"We are very involved in the community", noted President Miller. "We promote giving the gift of sight by providing eye exams, lenses and frames to those in need throughout the Dexter area."
You can help the Dexter Lions Club by donating your old eye glass frames to this program. Dexter Family Eye is a local drop off location for your old frames, or contact one of the club members.
"We also donate to various veterans groups, support our local schools with donations to the goodwill games, Missouri Boys and Girls State, Project Prom, and many other causes that enrich the youth within our community", added Miller.
You will also want to mark your calendar for the July 25th as the Lions Club will be hosting its annual golf tournament at Hidden Trails Country Club. And of course, you will always find members involved with the Stoddard County Fair cooking up the fair favorites, funnel cakes.
"It's an honor to serve with great men and give back to a great community", noted Miller.
Missouri - The Missouri Department of Conservation will be offering its annual Discover Nature Girls Camp in the Southeast region. It is a free three-day, two-night girls camp aimed at introducing young ladies ages 11–15 to different outdoors skills in a supportive learning environment.
The camp will be held June 23rd, 24th, and 25th at Camp SEMO in Wappapello, MO.
Campers spend three fun filled days learning by participating in “hands on” outdoor skills. These activities will be led by experts in their field, which will allow the participants to leave with the confidence to explore Missouri’s diverse outdoors on their own. Some activities include hunter education class, shooting firearms and archery equipment, walking through a safety trail and taking the hunter education test.
Throughout the camp, the girls will participate in a variety of outdoor skills such as canoeing, orienteering and fishing. Campers learn about all aspects of fishing; from fish identification, casting, tying knots, and cleaning fish, to finally going fishing. This all occurs in a group setting of their peers, being taught by knowledgeable instructors who make participants comfortable and willing to try new things. The camp is limited to 40 girls between the ages of 11 to 15 years old. The first 40 applications completed and received will be selected to attend.
Dexter, Missouri - Local police will be out in full force as part of the annual nationwide St. Patrick’s Day Holiday “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” crackdown on drunk driving. The crackdown, which will include high-visibility enforcement throughout Dexter, will run from March 14-17, 2015.
The effective nationwide drunk driving crackdown will include high-visibility enforcement, high-profile events, and will be supported by national paid advertising, creating a comprehensive campaign to curb drunk driving over the St. Patrick’s Day holiday.
Dexter Police Department said its Officer's will be aggressively looking for drunk drivers during the crackdown and will arrest anyone caught driving drunk.
Although it is illegal in all 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to drive drunk (having a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or higher), far too many people across the nation get behind the wheel after consuming too much alcohol. The latest statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration underscore the serious nature of the nation’s continuing drunk driving epidemic.
These 11 new cases bring the total number of Missouri free-ranging deer that have tested positive for CWD to 14 for this past season and 24 overall since the disease was first discovered in the state in 2010 at a private hunting preserve in Linn County. CWD has also been found in 11 captive deer in Macon and Linn counties.
The Department has collected more than 43,000 tissue samples since it began testing for the emerging disease in 2001. MDC has collected more than 3,400 tissue samples for CWD testing from harvested and other free-ranging deer this season. Results for about 330 tissue samples are still in the process of being tested by an independent, outside laboratory.
“We will provide an update of final results once all testing has been completed for the season,” said MDC Deer Biologist Jason Sumners. “We will continue to monitor the spread of the disease through more CWD testing this coming fall and winter. We are also updating our efforts to help contain the spread of the disease and will be working out the details over this spring and summer.”
Chronic Wasting Disease infects only deer and other members of the deer family by causing degeneration of the brain. The disease has no vaccine or cure and is 100-percent fatal.
Missouri offers some of the best deer hunting in the country, and deer hunting is an important part of many Missourians' lives and family traditions. Infectious diseases such as CWD could reduce hunting and wildlife-watching opportunities for Missouri's nearly 520,000 deer hunters and almost two million wildlife watchers. Deer hunting is also an important economic driver in Missouri and gives a $1 billion annual boost to state and local economies.
Lower deer numbers from infectious diseases such as CWD could hurt 12,000 Missouri jobs and many businesses that rely on deer hunting as a significant source of revenue, such as meat processors, taxidermists, hotels, restaurants, sporting goods stores, and others. CWD also threatens the investments of thousands of private landowners who manage their land for deer and deer hunting, and who rely on deer and deer hunting to maintain property values.
For more information on CWD in Missouri, visit the MDC website at mdc.mo.gov/node/16478.
