[sremington]

This is so great! For those of you who are not from Maine, right now to hunt turkey you have to be entered into a lottery and if you are picked you can hunt that year. If you receive a permit then you are not allowed to receive a permit for the following year. But, this event means that the turkey population is on the rise and it is projected that it will continue to grow. This is to spark the interest of the youth so that they can hunt them in the future. The turkey population has actually tripled in the last 5 years. My uncle used to never see turkey anywhere and he gets turkeys crossing the road by his house nearly every day. I see them now on the side of the interstate.

Anyway, the first single-day event is for next May 1st. Hopefully in the next few years there will be an open turkey season.

PORTLAND - The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has established a youth turkey day after a meeting in Ashland.The Youth Turkey Day was approved by the department's Advisory Council on Friday and will begin May 1, 2004. The regular turkey hunt begins two day later.

By giving youth a day of their own, the state hopes to foster interest in hunting, said Mark Stadler, Maine's wildlife division director. The state also has special junior hunting days for waterfowl and deer.

The rules for the youth turkey hunt next spring will be the same as those established last year for Youth Deer Day, except that a junior turkey hunter must win a permit in the turkey hunt lottery.

For the youth hunt, a junior hunter drawn in the lottery can hunt a male turkey or bearded female bird by firearm or bow and arrow, as long as they are under the supervision of a parent, guardian or a qualified adult.

The qualified adult must be a person 18 or older who has been approved to serve as a guide by the youth's parent or guardian; this person must hold a valid Maine hunting license or have completed a hunter safety course.

The accompanying adult cannot possess a firearm. The bag limit for youth hunters is one bird.

All junior hunters ages 10 to 15 who win a turkey hunt permit can hunt the Saturday before season A, which starts May 3, even if they were drawn for season B in the split-season hunt, which lasts five weeks and sends two sets of hunters into the field at different times.