Two mature gobblers enter a field in northeastern Arkansas to compete for hens. (Special to The Commercial/Mike Wintroath/Arkansas Game and Fish Commission)
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Hunters have until 11:59 p.m. Feb. 15 to apply for a chance at one of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s managed permit-only turkey hunts on select wildlife management areas (WMAs) throughout the state this spring.
Visit the AGFC website and click the “Get a License” link in the top right corner of the page to get started. WMA hunt applications are listed under the Special Hunt Permits Section of the licensing system, according to an AGFC news release.
Turkey hunting is open on many Arkansas WMAs to anyone during the season, but a handful of locations are managed through randomly drawn permits to increase hunt quality. Some draws are designed to reduce pressure on birds in popular hunting areas, while others are used in smaller areas where hunters may get too close to each other to have enjoyable hunts, according to the release.
WMA Turkey Hunt Permits will be drawn Feb. 17, and successful applicants will be notified by Feb. 18. Any leftover permits will be made available through the AGFC licensing site beginning at 8 a.m. Feb. 23. Hunters who successfully draw a permit for a special WMA turkey hunt will also need to claim their free permit upon notification of their draw status.
In addition to WMA Turkey Hunting Permits, all turkey hunters must carry a valid Arkansas hunting license that allows the harvest of big game as well as a Nonresident Turkey Permit ($100), Resident Turkey Tag (free), Nonresident Youth Turkey Tag (free), or a Resident Youth Turkey Tag (free).
Each permit holder is allowed to bring one hunting mentor who did not draw a permit on their hunt. Hunting mentors must have a valid hunting license, and they are not eligible to harvest a bird or hunt any other in-season game animals, but they can call for the permitted hunter and help them learn the ropes.
Applications require a $5 nonrefundable processing fee. Winning applicants are not required to pay any additional fees beyond the purchase of their hunting license.
Visit the AGFC website to view a list of available permits and odds of drawing each hunt based on last year’s permit applications.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reminds hunters they can now use artificial light and other methods for an extended period during the coyote hunting season. Regulation changes were approved by the Conservation Commission in fall 2025, allowing the use of artificial light, night vision, and thermal imagery equipment from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30, excluding the prescribed spring turkey hunting season. The changes took effect Jan. 1, 2026.
During this extended period, coyotes may not be chased, pursued, or taken during the daylight hours from April 1 through the day prior to the beginning of the spring turkey hunting season. Coyotes, except as otherwise provided in the Wildlife Code of Missouri, may be taken by hunting, and pelts and carcasses may be possessed, transported, and sold in any numbers throughout the year.
Special method restrictions apply during spring turkey season, elk season and deer season. See Allowed & Prohibited methods at http://short.mdc.mo.gov/o3H. Any questions about conservation area regulations and the Wildlife Code can be directed to local MDC staff. Find local MDC staff by county at http://short.mdc.mo.gov/4ok.
According to Mike Koshmrl of WyoFile, wolf hunters in 2024 spent an average of 450 days in the field per animal for each wolf they killed. Apparently these guys have some slow snow machines, eh? Sorry, bad joke, but you get the gist of it, no?
Point of fact: Montana and Idaho, the only other states in the lower 48 that legalized wolf hunting, have adopted by legalizing, methods like trapping, snaring, and thermal-imagery-assisted night hunting over baits . All of which are a big no-no in Wyoming’s wolf trophy game areas, for no other reason except that those methods work. In our state’s declared predator zone, which is most of the state, virtually anything goes including using motorized vehicles to run the critters to ground. After all, contrary to the popular belief out there among the “Friends of the Furries,” this predator control is not a big party thing. Unlike the popular press would have most of our more naive citizens to believe.
Don’t believe me? Spend a season or two tending calving heifers on a range with wolves present and see if your attitude doesn’t change significantly or go on a calf count in the nurse pasture and count the half-eaten and the totally missing calf carcasses, not to mention the damaged mother cows minus their calves. Any attitude of sunshine and butterflies will soon disappear as you personally validate the carnage. But that’s just about what is as opposed to what’s touted as being so by the Disneyfiles. Butterflies land on Bambi’s nose too.
Regardless, during that same hunting period, 2024, my sources indicate the average Wyoming deer hunter spent 12 days out in the boonies hunting for the deer of their choice. Back when wife Sandi and I were hunting critters for groceries, I think we may have averaged, not counting travel time or prep time, about three hours per deer. Unless we were looking for antlers, in which case it could have varied from hours to days and even weeks, depending on the quality and size of those sought-after antlers. Mostly, unless we were hunting buck-only tags, we didn’t get concerned about antlers. And, although we collected some super bucks over the years, we never entered any of them in any of the local “Big Bucks” contests. Seems to run counter to the reasons we hunted.
The difference in our successes with big bucks lies in being able to know where to find those bucks. And, of course, always the eternal variable, the weather. What really leveled the field was having a knowledge born from being constantly immersed in the affairs of the bush people on a year-round basis. Knowing where the big boys are at various times during the season is a whale of a lot better than wondering where. As far as that goes, in that regard it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about hunting critters, furred or feathered, or fishing for your dinner – actual, factual knowledge of your quarry makes life a lot more pleasant and rewarding.
Unlike deer hunters during that same time period mentioned above, elk hunters had it a bit leaner. According to Koshmrl, statewide, these nimrods drove, hiked and hunted for an average of 19 days per each elk. At that, only 53% punched tags that year. Listening to the scuttlebutt at the local pubs and coffee shops, that figure sounds about right. This probably includes those dudes who hired guides and hunted what amounts to virtual game farms in select locations who racked up a 100% kill ratio. But then again, including stats from actual hunters tends to drop that percentage down simply because there are some nimrods who spent an entire season, all 30 or 45 days or more, chasing elk through the wild high country and never punched their tags.
So some ranch styles of “buckboard hunting” shouldn’t count. Semi-domesticated ranch elk are fairly easy to hunt, or so I’m told. And an unfair inclusion into the regular hunting stats I might add if so and yes, apparently there are some pay-to-play ranches even here in Wyoming where the elk are so used to seeing people that you can dang near pet them.
Or so I’ve heard. While semi-tame elk still taste as good as wild elk and the mounts still look impressive hanging on the wall, that ain’t hunting to my mind. But the environmentally ignorant, the lazy and, unfortunately, the disabled appreciate the simplicity of the hunt. Like with Boone & Crockett records, only fair chase should count in those harvest stats, and fair chase, like pornography, can be fairly hard to define.
Then there are the bison hunts, which are basically hunts in name only. The hard part is finding a bison rancher whom you can afford. Or, drawing a tag to hunt a free-ranging buff usually on state or federal lands. In the old days, the hardest part of the hunt was finding the herd. And that didn’t matter whether you were a native Amerindian or a northern European import. Once located, the proper critter was selected and assassinated. No other word for it because it’s only an excercise in marksmanship. I’ve done it and so have several of my friends.
They’ll tell you that the purpose is to secure meat the old-fashioned way, by killing it ourselves, and perhaps because ranch hunting is usually the only way one can legally hunt bison. Even with the proper authorities involved and the lucky hunter drawing a state tag, it still requires a working officer of some type to take you back to the bison, point out the proper critter and then validate your state-issued tag after consummation. Arduous in some cases, yes, but still not the epitome of a grand hunt. And yes, I’d do it again.
As far as hunting our state’s larger carnivores, excluding mountain lions (for which I have no data available), the challenge seems to be magnified in proportion to the perceived status of the species. For example, Wyoming black bear hunters spent, in 2023, the last year of my data, 66 days in the field per each bruin rugged out. Success rates hovered around 14%. Bears, even when hunted over a legal bait site, are no dummies and are totally capable of turning the tables on overly arrogant hunters.
We’re referring to black bears here, not those hoary old he-bears called grizzlies. If you want to hunt them, the brown bears and the grizzlies, you need to either go to Alaska or Canada and engage a for-certain wilderness guide, not some unemployed cowboy picked up at a local bar.
In split vote, Game and Fish commissioners decide to allow hunters over age 18 to earn certificates solely through online coursework — an option already available via out-of-state classes.
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Fremont County resident and hunter safety instructor Joan Eisemann wants Wyoming to keep requiring in-person coursework for novice hunters as a matter of public safety.
Some of her adult students have never handled a gun before, she said.
“I cannot stress enough the safety factor,” Eisemann told the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission at a Jan. 13 meeting. “Safety first.”
Eisemann was joined by a handful of instructors and hunting advocates who all urged commissioners to keep the in-person requirement in the state agency’s policy. They espoused benefits such as real-life firearm handling, simulations like crossing fences with guns and students getting facetime with wardens to go over Wyoming’s regulations.
Ultimately, however, commissioners opted to modernize and go a direction that the majority of states already have.
“We accept hunter safety certifications from other states, and now 33 states have an online-only version,” Game and Fish Commissioner Rusty Bell said.
A hunter walking through a burn scar in the Medicine Bow National Forest. (Chris Rynders)
That puts Wyoming wildlife officials in a bit of a bind. Even if they retained an in-person requirement, state-to-state reciprocity would enable Wyoming’s adult-onset hunters to enroll in online hunter safety courses offered by other states. And about 100 residents did just that in 2025, taking classes offered by Idaho and Nebraska, according to Game and Fish personnel.
“That’s the hard part,” Game and Fish Communications Chief Roy Weber told WyoFile. “So we may as well offer a course that we feel is beneficial and covers the stuff we want to cover here in the state of Wyoming.”
The specifics of Wyoming’s online-only hunter safety curriculum have not been decided. But, likely, the course will not include human instructors presenting remotely, he said.
“More than likely, it would be online modules that you would take with quizzes,” Weber said. “That could change.”
The exclusively online course should be available by early 2027. It will only be available to hunters over 18, which means that about two-thirds of Wyoming hunter safety students won’t be eligible.
“The research shows that … there isn’t a difference between the virtual or in-person [courses] with test scores,” Bruce told commissioners.
Youngsters inspect model firearms at a hunter education camp in 2023. Youth hunters must attend in-person courses to earn a hunter safety certificate, though Wyoming will soon offer online-only courses for adults. (Wyoming Game and Fish Department)
But some longtime hunter safety instructors worry that important lessons will be lost in the online-only format. Alan Brumsted was among those to testify against the policy change, and the Lander resident said he knows from experience that if a workaround is available to students, they’ll take it.
“I guess I see the worst in people, because I was a teacher,” Brumsted told WyoFile. “How can a student get around what they have to do? What’s a shortcut?”
Brumsted’s concern is that online test-takers will mindlessly scroll through required tutorials and then pass a test easily. Many of the questions have intuitive answers, he said.
“I worry about the integrity of the test,” Brumsted said. “And I worry about the fact that there’s just no accountability. There’s no in-person time for somebody to ask a question.”
The Game and Fish Commission OK’d the new online-only option for hunter safety certificates in a 4-2 vote, with Commissioners Ken Roberts and John Masterson opposed.
“I listen to the people who teach hunter education,” Masterson said, “and I cannot help but give them a great deal of deference.”
Roberts shared a similar rationale: “If the educators are saying we need to have [in-person courses] to make it a better program,” he said, “to me, we need to have it to make it a better program.”
State wildlife management agencies have been requiring hunter safety certificates as a prerequisite for holding hunting licenses since the 1950s. The requirements were spurred by concerns over hunting-related injuries and fatalities.
With the introduction of a bill that would codify the rights of hunters and fishers in the state constitution, lawmakers aim to protect the state’s hunting and fishing culture. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE GRAPHIC BY ELSA KEGELMAN
Why Should Delaware Care? Hunting, fishing and trapping advocates in Delaware say they are concerned by a decrease in the popularity and culture of their sports in the state. With the introduction of a bill that would codify the rights of hunters and fishers in the state constitution, lawmakers aim to protect that hunting and fishing culture.
A bipartisan group of state lawmakers has introduced a bill that would amend the state constitution to explicitly include Delawareans’ right to hunt, trap and fish.
What those constitutional rights would mean for hunters in practice, however, remains unclear.
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The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 212, does not spell out any specific rights for hunters, fishers and trappers, but rather simply acknowledges that these activities are a part of Delaware’s “valued, natural heritage,” and that they contribute to the management of wildlife in the state, House Minority Whip Jeff Spiegelman (R-Clayton), a co-sponsor of the bill, told Spotlight Delaware.
The bill’s primary sponsor, State Sen. Dave Wilson (R-Lincoln), said he is concerned that animal rights groups or gun control advocates could come to the legislature in the future and try to outlaw or further regulate hunting, so he wants to enshrine it as a right in the state constitution.
“All I’m looking at is, guaranteed, the right for future generations to do something that for the last 250 years we’ve been able to do and nobody ever questioned it,” Wilson said.
Wilson and Spiegelman both said that they do not agree with the recent passage of more strict gun control legislation in Delaware, like the enactment of permit to purchase this past November, but they see this codification of hunters’ rights as a separate issue from firearm laws.
Twenty one other states have similar provisions in their state constitutions preserving the right to hunt, fish and trap wildlife. None of Delaware’s East Coast neighbors have the right to hunt and fish constitutionally protected, though Vermont was the first state to adopt such a statute in 1777.
Because it is a proposed constitutional amendment rather than a standard law, the bill would require a two-thirds majority vote by both the current General Assembly and next year’s General Assembly.
The last time the Delaware state constitution was amended was in 2023, when the General Assembly passed amendments to adjust the legislature’s Division of Research, require legislators to live in the districts they represent for their entire term of office and require the last day of the General Assembly’s regular session to end by 5 p.m. June 30.
While Wilson acknowledged that accumulating the two-thirds majority necessary to approve the amendment could be a challenge, the bill already appears to have bipartisan support in the form of co-sponsors William Carson (D-Smyrna) and Alonna Berry (D-Milton).
Reps. Carson and Berry did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment.
Wilson said he and his colleagues had considered a hunters’ and fishers’ rights amendment in the past, but the proposed legislation did not have the support of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), the state agency that issues hunting and trapping licenses.
This time around, however, Wilson said he went to DNREC first to ensure that they were comfortable with the bill, before bringing it to the legislature.
Michael Globetti, a spokesperson for DNREC, said his department was “appreciative” of the chance to work with Wilson on his proposed amendment.
“We worked with the Senator on language in his proposal that makes clear that reasonable laws and regulations will continue to guide these activities in Delaware,” Globetti wrote in a message to Spotlight Delaware.
The bill states that if the amendment were adopted, it would still be up to DNREC and other state agencies to determine the application of property rights, water use laws, and the suspension or revocation of any individuals’ hunting, fishing, or trapping licenses.
A wildlife focus
While Wilson and Speigelman said the principal goal of the amendment is to keep hunters’, fishers’, and trappers’ rights protected from any future legal challenges, they also want it to recognize how hunting helps maintain the state’s wildlife.
Spiegelman said the fact that the annual license fees hunters and fishers pay to DNREC are used to fund wildlife conservation and habitat restoration is evidence of hunters’ and fishers’ positive impact on the natural environment.
He also noted the federal Pittman-Robertson Act, passed in 1937, which began the process of funding wildlife conservation through taxes on firearms, ammunition and other hunting gear.
Spiegelman said he believes that if hunting and fishing is not encouraged in Delaware through measures like the proposed constitutional amendment, the number of licenses the state sells will continue to decrease each year, making it harder for the state to maintain wildlife areas.
DNREC issued 15,400 licenses in 2024, according to the most recent numbers published by the agency. That is the lowest number of licenses sold in decades, as the total number of hunters in Delaware peaked at about 30,000 in 1975, and has steadily dropped since then.
Jeff Hague, president of the Delaware State Sportsmens’ Association, said his group is “totally in support” of the bill, and that he appreciates how it acknowledges hunters’ responsibility to be good stewards of the state’s natural resources.
Adrien Cortez (right), an 18-year-old hunter, said he is relieved by the Delaware Superior Court’s ruling striking down the state’s tighter gun regulations and hunting supervision requirements. | PHOTO COURTESY OF ADRIEN CORTEZ
Hague said he thinks people have often done more harm to animals by cutting down forests to build housing developments and using chemicals on wildlife than hunters do by naturally managing the animal population.
“We believe in the proper management of all the game, fish and wildlife in the state of Delaware, so that we can make sure that these resources are available for the future,” Hague added.
Wilson said he takes issue with the recent passage of more strict firearm laws in Delaware, such as House Bill 451 requiring hunters aged 18 to 20 be supervised by someone age 21+, which was later struck down by a Superior Court judge, and Senate Bill 2, requiring individuals to obtain a permit to purchase a firearm.
At the same time, though, Wilson said he views the proposed amendment as a separate issue from the firearm legislation, and a more direct way to preserve the state’s hunting culture.
“It’s not really changing anything other than guaranteeing that the future of our youth and residents of Delaware will always be afforded the right to fish, hunt and trap,” he said.
Wilson filed the bill on Dec. 18, 2025. Because it has not yet been heard in committee, he said he does not expect any movement until mid-March, since February and early March will be taken up by Joint Finance Committee hearings.
Two mature gobblers enter a field in northeastern Arkansas to compete for hens. (Special to The Commercial/Mike Wintroath/Arkansas Game and Fish Commission)
Exposing the Big Game 