Hi Members--A few mornings ago- I found an OLD turkey hunting permit for Stewart State Forest in Orange County,NY. It brought back many memories of hunting at this area before it became State Land in 1999. Of course -- The Dept Of Environmental Conservation mailed out the permits to lucky hunters in the know for--1997. I pulled May 4th,11th, and the 18th. No luck that year- but in 1998-- I pulled the opener of May 1st and took a huge gobbler that weighed around 24 pounds.
I also remember a huge white sign at the corner of Rt. 207 and what is now called Rt. 747. It said in big black letters---NO SPRING TURKEY HUNTING!! I started to see that in 1995 after local NY hunters asked about hunting this area which at the time was called Stewart Cooperative Area. But- 1996 was the very 1st year for Spring Turkey Hunting at this huge area. The Surprise in my title was not a good one at all for NEW YORK Spring Turkey Hunters. Now- my Brother-in-law- Mark--also a turkey hunter with over 60 public land turkeys to his credit phoned me very early on the 1996 Spring Turkey Opener in NY. He lives- 1 mile away from this huge area and told me that a very long line of cars and trucks with NEW JERSEY plates were lined up at the main gate to this area which is off of Rt. 207. All these men had camo on and were there to hunt Spring Turkeys on the NY opener! It is only about 28 miles from this area to the NJ border. A friend of Mark's first called him and said--what the hell is going on over at Stewart. Only NJ hunters are allowed in to hunt turkeys!!! As you can guess- in a few hours-probably hundreds of local hunters knew. And the3 very next year was the 1st year for mailed permits in a lottery as I wrote. So- this happened over 20 years ago and almost forgotten. Someone or group pulled some strings over 20 years ago. Hope members enjoyed the true story.
