OUTDOOR CORNER: WHEN EASTER ARRIVES, SPRING TURKEY SEASON NOT FAR BEHIND

This may well be Easter Sunday, but let's talk turkey. Mention "Turkey Day" and most folks conjure up visions of Thanksgiving holiday in late November. Their eyes glaze over and their mouths water at the thought of the plump turkey that is guest-of-honor at the dinner table.

However, if you mention "Turkey Day" to one of the ever-growing number of wild turkey hunters in Missouri, you will get a slightly different reaction. Oh sure, their eyes glaze over, but their mouths go dry as they envision a huge gobbler lured within shotgun range in mid-April.

Missouri spring turkey hunting season opens April 21 and runs through May 4. A person possessing the prescribed turkey hunting permit may take two male turkeys or turkeys with visible bard during the season, provided only one turkey may be taken during each week of the season. Turkeys may be taken only by shotgun with shot no larger than No. 4, or longbow, without the use of dogs, bait, recorded calls or live decoys.

Legal shooting hours will be from one-half hour before sunrise to 1 p.m. CDT. This means that shooting time will be 5:47 a.m. on opening day for hunters in the Cape Girardeau area. For locations west, add one minute for each 13.5 miles of airline distance.

Again this year, hunters should plan to take some extra equipment along. In addition to camouflage and calls, they should include an ink pen and a knife. Because of the Point-Of-Sale permit system, turkey permits are separate from transportation tags.

Any person killing a turkey must immediately invalidate the harvest log portion of their permit by writing the date and time of kill and punching or notching the edge of the permit. Also, the hunters must immediately affix to the turkey a transportation tag, which shall remain attached to the carcass until it has been submitted with the permit by the taker at an established checking station.

This year, for the first time, the transportation tag may be homemade or provided by the vendor. Either way, it must list the full name and address of the taker and the month and day the turkey was taken.

Each person hunting with a shotgun should affix to the receiver of the gun, where it will be in the line of sight when shooting, the "Be Safe" sticker from the transportation tag. This sticker should be left on the shotgun when hunting.

Successful hunters shall submit their tagged turkey with head and plumage intact, along with their permit for inspection and marking at an established checking station in the county where taken or an adjoining county between 7 a.m.-3 p.m. on the day taken.

A landowner or lessee, as defined in the Wildlife Code of Missouri, may take and possess turkeys according to regulations without a permit. The landowner/lessee must tag the turkey with their full name and address and the date immediately upon taking and shall personally deliver the turkey to a check station.

I haven't seen any official predictions with regard to this spring turkey season, but in Southeast Missouri, turkey populations appear to be on the rise. Conservation agents report good numbers of birds in Madison, Wayne and Bollinger counties. Both Cape Girardeau and Perry counties have seen a significant increase in the number of young birds compared to recent years. If this population trend continues and the weather cooperates, hunters in southeast Missouri could easily exceed last year's regional harvest of 2,294 birds. Statewide, there were 37,594 turkey taken in 1996.

Gene Myers is a Missouri Department of Conservation agent in Cape Girardeau County.