Columnist Paula Del Giudice: Turkey hunting picks up for state residents

Thursday, March 11, 1999 | 10:30 a.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors notebook appears weekly. Reach her at PDelGiudice@compuserve.com

When March rolls around, hunters throughout the country start thinking about turkey hunting. Turkey hunting is a major sport in the states where turkeys abound, such as California, and throughout the South in states such as Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Texas and Alabama.

Turkeys aren't native to Nevada -- there's not much typical habitat here for them.

The state wildlife agency tried releasing birds in the Carson Range near Carson City. For many reasons, perhaps including disease, those releases never resulted in thriving populations.

But in 1987, perhaps in response to the urging of the Nevada Wildlife Federation and other outdoorsmen and women, the Division of Wildlife decided to try the birds in a different habitat.

Thinking that Rio Grande turkeys might favor the river bottoms along the Walker River with tall cottonwood trees nearby for roosting, NDOW staff traveled to northern California to trap turkeys that had been causing depredation problems on private land.

The birds were released on the Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area near Yerington. They did find the new habitat to their liking and their populations began to grow.

Since then, birds have been released in several areas around the state, including Moapa Valley. Turkey hunting provides exciting sport for hunters during the spring and fall.

To help hunters become more successful and to create interest for turkey hunting, NDOW is sponsoring a free turkey-hunting seminar on Sunday from 9 a.m.-noon at its Las Vegas office, 4747 West Vegas Drive.

The featured speaker will be Steve Wilson, public affairs coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. He will discuss turkey biology, locating birds, calling and hunting techniques.

NDOW will provide an update on Nevada's turkey program and give tips on field safety while hunting.

The event is open to the public and reservations are not required. Hunters who have tags for Nevada's spring turkey hunts will be given preferential seating, however.

For more information, contact the Nevada Division of Wildlife at 486-5127.

* HUNTING REGULATIONS PUBLISHED: Nevada hunters will soon have a single source of information with publication of a new booklet that includes regulations for all big game, upland game, waterfowl and furbearing seasons.

The booklet will be mailed to big-game hunters in June with notifications of their tag-drawing results. The booklets also will be available at stores that sell hunting licenses in mid-June.

An item that will not be included in the booklets will be quotas for the upland game, waterfowl and furbearers. These will be published as wallet-sized cards after quotas are established.