Beyond Comprehension

I was thinking about taking up Turkey hunting. My daughter bought a farm south of Mankato and says there are turkeys running around all over the place. So I went to the DNR website and started reading the regulations. Incredibly confusing and very discouraging. It’s easier to understand high energy particle physics!

For example…..it sounds like you can buy a license and go hunting in the fall, but in the spring you have to apply for a permit in a specific area. Then they mention there are 5 different time periods, and something about the last time period being open for anyone who didn’t get a turkey earlier, I think. They make peripheral references to all these things but never explain it. For example, if I manage to figure what permit area I’m in and apply for a weekend and don’t get drawn, can I hunt that last weekend? It really doesn’t say. On the DNR website I clicked on “Hunting” and “Wild Turkey” and found several pages of text….that included the statement that this wasn’t really the rules but just a summary. Of course there’s no link to the rules! And they wonder why numbers of hunters and anglers has been dropping.

Is there any organization that has and explanation of the rules in plain English?

Thanks

SR

It’s not that bad. The last few years the first 3 hunting periods are lottery but then after that they are over the counter. Just bring me along and I’ll figure it all out.
DT

Sounds like a deal to me! It’s Becky’s farm, she’d get a kick out of seeing you I’m sure.

The DNR drives me nuts. Let’s say they want to open up White Bear Lake to fishing on Sundays. You or I might say “Fishing is allowed on White Bear Lake on Sundays”.

The DNR would say:
Fishing is prohibited in Washington County, except White Bear Lake on all days inclusive between Monday and Saturday”.

Which most people would try to read and say “Huh”? Everything they do is written like that. Or as my German speaking Grandmother used to say, “Throw the cow over the fence some hay”.

OK, back to live programming.

SR

Steve….those fall hunts are great. Every turkey I have taken came during the fall and I’ve shot a few.

Wild Turkey should be drank with a slash of water. Eating it will result in feathers between your teeth.

And now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

The good news is you can use muzzleloading shotguns.
DT

deertracker wrote:

The good news is you can use muzzleloading shotguns.
DT

You mean they make breech loaders now too?

Sounds like you have it figured out. The spring season is commonly divided into 5 day (or weekish) long seasons. Historically you could only apply for and hunt one of the seasons. There was a rule change last year (2016) where you only had to apply for the first two seasons. The remaining seasons were over the counter. Another change was if you had a license for any of the earlier seasons and didn’t harvest a turkey you could hunt the last season as well. Believe it or not the spring turkey seasons are more permissive now than they use to be.

What I don’t know for sure is if they still enforce a license quota per season. This is where the permit areas come into play. Each permit area in the past only allowed X number of licenses to be sold. If you didn’t have enough applicants they would sell the surplus over the counter. They still do this for the first 2 seasons but I’m not sure on the remaining seasons. Seasons 3-whatever may be first-come-first-served over the counter until the quota is reached. Or… they may not. Does anyone know this?

Sigh…..It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing any hunting soon with my muzzle loader. I just refinished it, it’s a beautiful, traditional dark brown color. Today I had one shot at a pheasant and I nailed him….I can still hit with this gun. MY gun…the one I built from a kit 30 years ago. My beautiful gun.

Then the locks started to act strange. The trigger pull seemed excessive, and the left hand hammer wasn’t snapping down with authority. When I got home I found a broken part in BOTH locks. The same part on each side. It appears to be an aluminum casting, something called a bridle. A search on the Internet reveals that a lot of people have this same problem and nobody has ever found replacement parts. It’s a Navy Arms gun, the parts were made by Pieta in Italy.

My only hope is that my son-in-law (Sharon’s talented husband) and I can manufacture replacement parts on our own.

SR

That’s a bummer to hear Dad! I was hoping it was just something simple going on there. I’m sure you and Billy will be able to join heads and work some magic!