Despite delay opening day brings smiles for Spokane turkey hunters, anglers

In most ways, Tuesday was like any other opening day.

Jamie Belknap woke at 3:30 a.m. By 4:15, she was ensconced in her hunting blind on some private land south of Spokane.

Soon she heard gobbling, and by 6:15, four turkeys wandered into sight.

“Four birds walked up the hill, and I shot the tom with the biggest head,” she said.

By 8, she was back home with a turkey in the bag.

But of course, this wasn’t a normal opening spring turkey day.

The coronavirus pandemic delayed the spring hunting and fishing seasons nearly a month and has shuttered schools and businesses.

When Belknap returned home, she logged onto Zoom to teach, a drastic change from the quiet of an early morning hunt.

“Imagine a Zoom video with 10 6-year-olds,” she said.

Belknap is a teacher at Seth Woodard Elementary school in the Spokane Valley.

She also noticed differences in the field. There were more turkeys than normal, and they were bunched up.

“No one has been hunting them,” she said. “I saw the difference.”

Across the state, cooped up hunters and anglers flooded into newly opened public land Tuesday.

On Monday, WDFW sold more than a million dollars in licenses. Throughout the state Tuesday, WDFW staff reported crowded parking lots.

By and large, however, everyone maintained proper social distance and respected rules implemented by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, spokeswoman Staci Lehman said.

“Everything went really smoothly. Nobody had any issues,” she said.

Enforcement officers said they saw a lot of families and individuals and “not a lot of random adult groups.”

In the Spokane region, Newman Lake’s parking lot was packed with cars, as were Eloika Lake and Medical Lake’s parking lots. Anglers reported good success at Medical and Eloika lakes and less success at Newman.

Still, everyone seemed happy to be out, Lehman said.

Like Belknap, Josh Mills was up early Tuesday to hunt turkeys on some private land near Chattaroy. By midmorning, he’d managed to call in two toms, who started to fight each other. Mills bagged one of them from 25 yards away, and the other beat a hasty retreat.

“It was one of those situations where midmorning can be pretty effective,” he said. “Because if the hens go to their nests in the morning, then the boys start looking for hens. It’s like 2 a.m at the bar and it’s last call.”

Belnap and Mills said they didn’t see another soul – social distancing at its best.

“I can understand the initial order. But I was completely by myself and I didn’t talk to anyone,” Mills said. “If I’m 6 feet from another hunter, we have a real problem.”