GRAY (AP) Maine’s wild turkey season opens for all hunters Monday and runs through June 4.

It is the first season for which permits were issued to all applicants – 23,949.

Several hundred hunters between the ages of 10 and 15 took up the hunt Saturday, the first day of the wild turkey hunt that is set aside for youth hunters.

Wild turkeys were reintroduced in Maine in 1977 by the state and took hold within a few years. In 1986, Maine had its first modern turkey hunt. Last year, 15,600 hunters were issued permits and 4,675 hunters were successful.

A split-season format has been put in place, with only half the hunters in the field at any one time.

On Youth Turkey Day, young hunters with a valid wild turkey permit and a junior hunting license could hunt wild turkey with a firearm or bow and arrow in the presence of a parent or guardian.

Helen Humphrey of Pownal used a muzzleloader to take a 19.6-pound bird that, when slung over her back, was virtually as long as the 10-year-old girl.

“I was very fidgety,” said Humphrey, who is the daughter of a Maine guide. “I heard a lot of birds. When I saw this one, he was walking pretty fast. I was kind of determined. But even if I didn’t get a bird, it was very much fun.”

Last winter, 20,300 turkey permits were issued. Another 3,649 were given out last month when Gov. John Baldacci signed a bill allowing all interested turkey hunters to receive a permit for the spring hunt.

Danielle Brown had never shot a wild turkey before but the 12-year-old from Gray called in a gobbler Saturday and shot it with her 20-gauge shotgun.

When her hunt started around 5:30 a.m., she called in one tom but didn’t even consider shooting him, saying he was too small.

“I was looking for a bigger one. We went to another place. This one looked really big,” Brown said of the 17.8-pound tom.