Turkey hunt a bust so far

Turkey season continues

The Death Ram has traveled north twice in search of turkeys in the past two weeks. There are four turkey tags in my wallet.

The fall general turkey season will run through Dec. 31 in Game Management Units 101 through 154, along with 162 through 186. The limit is four turkeys, two beardless and two of either sex.

This means a hunter could tag four beardless (hens), or three beardless and one with a beard (tom) or two beardless and two with a beard.

It is obvious Fish and Wildlife is wanting to reduce the number of turkeys by allowing hunters to take four hens, which should reduce the overall numbers. This is also the way to deal with a game bird/animal overpopulation; issue more tags and provide more opportunities.

Now for the updated information: After two, all-day, trips to my hunt area, not one turkey has been seen. What is going on here?

Bill Green has been going along on the hunts as an observer, but even with his two eyes the turks have been elusive.

Asking landowners has brought disbelief. “They have been around,” “Don’t know where they are?” “Saw some yesterday,” have been the comments.

Past hunts have been an easy spot and pursue affairs. Now it is a find and pursue hunt.

Plan on heading northeast at least two more times before the end of the year. The cost of those four turks goes up with each trip. Sill is a fun trip, visiting with a companion as we travel.

Chinook fry lost after power outage

As many as 6.2 million chinook salmon fry died last weekend when a windstorm cut power to the Minter Creek Hatchery in Pierce County and the facility’s backup generator failed.

The department is conducting an analysis to determine the root cause of what went wrong, so this doesn’t happen again, according to Fish and Wildlife.

Dennis note: Ya think? Wonder when the backup generator was last checked. Perhaps they should check the generator once a week or once a day.

We are finally making some headway with reducing the sea lion population who are eating chinook as they travel up river. So, here we have an endangered species, sea lions, eating endangered chinook salmon. What to do? And it is reported the endangered orcas, killer whales, are having trouble finding one of their favorite foods, the chinook.

Wonder if Fish and Wildlife is considering restricting fishing for salmon? What a shame.

The first item on the salmon recovery list should be to greatly reduce the sea lion numbers.