April 8-21, 1999

Contact: Madonna Luers, (509) 456-4073 or Mike Judge, (360) 902-2407

Washington's month-long, spring hunting season for wild turkeys opens April 15, and this may be the year when the statewide harvest reaches a thousand birds.

That's because wild turkeys are abundant throughout the state, particularly in the northeast, southeast, and Klickitat County areas. A high harvest is also expected because under the new Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) licensing system, anyone who buys a small game package gets a turkey tag.

Washington's wild turkey hunting has soared in popularity in the last 10 years due to introductions and transplants of these non-native birds. In the early 1990's, a couple hundred turkeys were harvested by hunters; last year, 828 were taken in 19 counties.

The wild turkey is favored game not only because it provides for up to 20 pounds of tasty dinner table fare, but also for the challenge it presents to the hunter. Wild turkeys are extremely wary animals with excellent eyesight and hearing. Even during spring mating season when male turkeys' attention is focused on hens, the birds are cautious in the woods. Successful turkey hunters do lots of pre-season scouting, use extensive camouflage clothing and gear, and learn to call gobblers by mimicking hen turkeys.

Washington has three wild turkey subspecies. The most abundant are Merriam's turkeys, found mostly in Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Klickitat and Skamania counties. Rio Grande turkeys generally are found in northern Lincoln County and Asotin, Columbia, Garfield, and Walla Walla counties. Eastern turkeys are the least abundant and are found mostly in Cowlitz, Lewis, Thurston, Grays Harbor, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties. Most of these areas include public land, but private lands host many turkeys, too, and landowner permission is required before hunting.

Washington turkey hunters are allowed up to three turkeys per year, one each from the three subspecies (which are defined by county of kill.) The first turkey tag is included in the small-game hunting license package; additional tags are $18. Hunting is legal only for gobblers or turkeys with visible beards, and only with shotgun or bow and arrow. The season runs through May 15. All details are in WDFW's "Wild Turkey Spring Season" pamphlet, available at hunting license dealers and WDFW offices.

For more information about how and where to safely and successfully hunt wild turkeys this spring in Washington, contact the Washington Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation at P.O. Box 399, Electric City, WA 98813, (509) 633-3763.

Spring is the season for spectacular wildlife viewing including:

Whales and other marine mammals, which are visible on Washington's coast through May. Groups of California gray whales and an occasional minke or orca whale are migrating north to summer feeding areas in the Arctic. California sea lions, also visible, are migrating south to breeding grounds in Baja California, Mexico. Migration routes are close to shore, allowing easy observation with binoculars. Porpoises, seals, sea otters and a host of marine birds also may be in sight, especially if you take a wildlife-watching charter boat trip.

Several places along the coast offer good viewing spots or boating excursions:

• Westport offers state park beaches (Twin Harbors and Grayland), fishing piers and rock jetties with observation towers. The best way to watch the Westport area's gray whales, however, is by boat; call the Westport Chamber of Commerce (800-345-6223) for information about charters.
• Destruction Island Overlook, just off Highway 101 near Kalaloch and the mouth of the Hoh River in Jefferson County.
• Olympic National Park's Ozette Lake-Cape Alava unit in Clallam County has offshore boardwalk and beach trails. Contact the park office at 360-452-0330 for more information.
• Makah Indian Nation land on Makah Bay and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service refuge on Cape Flattery at the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula have some of the best offshore viewing. Contact the Makah Indian Nation at (360)645-2201 and USFWS at (360)645-2521 for more information.
• Contact the Seattle Aquarium at (206)386-4353 or the Port Townsend Marine Science Center at (360)385-5582 for information on whale watching trips.

Shed deer and elk antlers are treasures waiting to be found during a walk in the woods now. Most buck blacktail, mule and whitetail deer and bull elk have shed their annually-grown antlers by now and are re-growing new ones. These naturally shed antlers, unattached to a skull, can be legally collected. Most will be found on deer or elk wintering grounds. If you're lucky, you'll find both sides of a buck or bull's antlers and have a matched set. Some bucks or bulls shed both sides of their antlers within hours of each other, especially the bigger-antlered animals that feel the imbalance more when one antler sheds.

Good fishing is available in many spots, thanks to warming waters, fish migrations, or hatchery plants.

Before you go, be sure you've got your new April 1 - March 31 fishing license. WDFW's licensing system has changed from a calendar year to an April-through-March year. Licenses also are packaged differently this year, with all enhancements, surcharges, and catch record cards rolled into one fee. The new freshwater fishing package costs $20 and includes game fish, food fish (in freshwater), the warmwater fish surcharge, and steelhead -- which totaled $48 last year. License buyers receive an Access Stewardship Decal to put on their motor vehicle to park at WDFW access sites. This parking permit is free to fishing and hunting license buyers but costs $10 for non-license holders who park at the sites. Recreational licenses and access decal are sold at WDFW offices and hundreds of sporting goods and department stores across the state. Once you're licensed, here's where to go fishing:

• Sprague Lake on the Lincoln-Adams county line, right off Interstate 90, is producing some nice perch, mostly for boat anglers who can move around to find the schools. Some rainbow trout also are being caught at Sprague, which has a new public access on the southwest side.
• Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee Dam has big rainbows, net-pen-reared and stocked triploids (sterile fish that put on the inches and pounds), for boat anglers.
• The Columbia River's enclosed sloughs near the Tri-Cities in southeast Washington are starting to yield some smallmouth bass, now that water temperatures are around 49 degrees and the fish are migrating in from the mainstem. Patterson Slough and the backwaters of Crow Butte in Benton County, and Casey Pond in Walla Walla County, are good spots. Fish the hard bottom areas of gravel or rock, adjacent to large weedy flats and sheltered from main channel current. Smallmouths will readily take nightcrawlers, but artificial lures are more fun and allow easy catch-and-release. Use slow-action plastic lures while the water is cold.
• Lake Chelan is producing burbot, or freshwater lingcod, for boat anglers using worm-tipped jigs. Water levels are low, however, so boat launching is best from the Chelan PUD. ramp at Mill Bay.
• Fish Lake near Lake Wenatchee has rainbow trout and perch, caught right off the fishing docks. Until all the ice comes off Fish Lake, shore fishing may be the only action.
• In the south Puget Sound area, thousands of catchable-size rainbow trout recently were planted in these open lakes: Thurston County's Offutt and St. Clair lakes; King County's Green, Angle, Desire, Fenwick, and Spring lakes; Pierce County's Bonney, Clear, Crescent, Kapowsin, and Tule lakes, plus Wapato Lake for fishers under 15 only; Mason County's Isabella, Lost, Nahwatzel, Phillips, Tee and Trails End lakes.