LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission voted 4-2 Thursday to cancel the 2009 fall archery and modern gun turkey seasons.
The fall archery turkey season was scheduled to begin Oct. 1, while the firearms season was scheduled for Oct. 26-Nov. 1 in turkey management zones 3, 5B, 6 and 17.
Voting for the closure were commissioners Rick Watkins of Little Rock, Ron Pierce of Mountain Home, Craig Campbell of Little Rock and Emon Mahony ofEl Dorado. Their reason for closing the season was to prevent hen turkeys from being killed in the fall so that hens might survive to breed in the spring.
Commissioners George Dunklin of DeWitt and Ron Duncan of Springdale voted against the closure. Although the commission chairman only votes in the event of a tie, Chairman Brett Morgan also registered a vote for the record against closing the season.
"I'm convinced we've got a heck of a problem and we'vegot to do something," Campbell said. "I think this is the first step in trying to correct the problem. I think we've got an emergency situation. We're going to mess around, and one of these days we're not going to have a spring season if things don't change."
Dunklin said closing the season clashed with recommendations from the AGFC's turkey management team and its law enforcement division, and with external partners like the National Wild Turkey Federation. More important, he said, closing the season implies that hunters have caused the wild turkey's decline in Arkansas, rather than factors like weather and habitat conditions.
"In my four years here, this is probably the most contentious vote that I've seen, maybe even above the Robo-Duck, in the way that we're polarizing spring hunters and fall hunters," Dunklin said. "We're polarizing this group without any regard to science that doesn't show any reason for doing it at the last hour.
"In my experience in conservation, these boom and bust cycles are not unusual, and to think that as men we can somehow radically change that through the gun is something I do not agree with. Habitat is the criticalcomponent in all this, and our partner is the hunter, and to say to the hunter that you're the problem and not the solution is unacceptable to me."
Mahony proposed closing the fall season at the commission's August meeting. He said eliminating the 500 or so turkeys that hunters legally kill in the fall is essential for their overall recovery.
"This whole thing started when a group of former commissioners who have a whole lot more experience with turkeys than I do expressed great concern, and they said the only controllable variable is the harvest," Mahony said. "The hunters indicated to us a high level of concern. I cannotrecommend cutting back the spring harvest while letting hunters kill hens in the fall. That's a personal position."
Mike Widner, the AGFC's turkey biologist, also presented proposals for the 2010 spring turkey season. The proposal is available online at: http://www.agfc.com/!userfiles/pdfs/hunting/ 2010TurkeyProposalsSept09. pdf.
The commission also voted on a controversial catchand-release area on the Lake Norfork tailwater (lower North Fork of the White River). The commission voted 4-2 for option 2, which moves the upper boundary of the catch-and-release area up to the bottom of Long Hole and the lower boundary down to the Bill Ackerman/River Ridge Walk-in Access. That increases the length of the catch-and-release area from 1 mile, for a total of 2 miles.
Option 1 would have increased the length of the catch-and-release area to 2.6 miles.
The new regulation allow anglers to use artificial lures with barbless treble hooks in special regulation areas on the Bull Shoals and Norfork tailwaters. They also eliminated the Sylamore catchand-release area on the White River.
After another spirited debate, the commission voted 4-2 to limit the size of outboard motors to 50 horsepower on Henry Gray/ Hurricane Lake Wildlife Management Area. The vote followed a long discussion about the need for horsepower restrictions for boat motors at WMAs.
Campbell read accident reports from two boat operators whose boats collided at Hurricane Lake during the 2008-09 duck season and noted that both boats were powered by 25-horsepower motors. He said the "4 a.m. NASCAR start" that begins every hunting day on the area is a bigger threat to safety than powerful boat motors.
Pierce said the failure of one boater to follow boating "rules of the road" caused that accident. He also noted the financial hardship it would cause to boaters who would be forced to buy another motor under the new regulation.
A separate proposal would have done the same at Rex Hancock/Black Swamp WMA but failed for lack of a motion to bring it to a vote. A third proposal to ban airboats from WMAs passed unanimously.
Fall turkey seasons ARKANSAS Closed LOUISIANA Closed OKLAHOMA Archery: Oct. 1-Jan. 15, 2010.
Gun: Oct. 31-Nov. 20. One turkey.
MISSISSIPPI Oct. 15- Nov. 15. Two turkeys either sex.
MISSOURI Archery: Sept. 15-Nov 13, Nov. 25-Jan. 15, 2010. Firearms: Oct.
1-31. Two turkeys either sex.
TENNESSEE Archery: Sept. 26-Oct. 30, Nov. 2-6. Firearms: Dec. 7-18. Up to three turkeys.
TEXAS North Zone (Rio Grande turkeys): Nov. 7-Jan. 3. South Zone (Rio Grande turkeys): Nov. 7-Jan. 17. Archery Only: Oct. 3-Nov. 6. Four turkeys all seasons combined.
ALABAMA Nov. 21-Jan. 1. Limit five gobblers.
KANSAS Firearms/Archery: Oct. 1-Dec.
1, Dec. 14-Dec. 31, and Jan. 11-Jan. 31, 2010. Up to four turkeys either sex.
Sports, Pages 23, 27 on 09/25/2009