Missouri Spring Turkey Season Ends With Over 38,000 Harvested Birds

For many, the only time turkey is hunted is when you’re stalking the grocery store for a perfect butterball for Thanksgiving. For others, though, turkey hunting comes around every spring and fall with hopes of bagging a bird or two before the season runs out. Missouri spring turkey hunting season is finally over. In the past three weeks, preliminary data collected by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) shows that over 36,000 birds were killed during this year’s regular spring season.

Turkey Hunting

Missouri youth turkey hunters have already gone out and harvested over 2,000 birds on April 6-7. On April 15 however, it was time for the regular Missouri spring turkey season to begin. For the next 20 days, citizens across the state got out and managed to bring down a few thousand turkeys. On the fifth of May, the bird hunt was complete and preliminary data from MDC shows that exactly 36,231 turkeys were checked in by various turkey hunters over the course of the past three weeks.

A Large Harvest

The state counties with the most turkeys harvest were Franklin County with 785 birds checked, Texas County with 729, and Callaway County with 672 turkeys. Oregon County managed to kill 233 turkeys overall, 196 adult gobblers and 37 juvenile gobblers. Young turkey hunters had already harvested 2,546 birds earlier for the spring season which brings the overall spring turkey harvest of 2019 up to 38,785. That number is over 2,000 more turkeys than last years spring harvest which only had 34,072 in the regular season and 1,729 in the youth portion- an overall yield of 35,801 birds. ^[1]

If you missed Missouri’s spring turkey seasons, don’t worry, fall turkey season will be starting in a few more months. If you want more information about this seasons turkey harvest and the number of birds harvested by county click here.