By the Missouri Department of Conservation
Preliminary data from the Missouri Department of Conservation shows that turkey hunters checked 38,730 birds during Missouri’s 2020 regular spring turkey season, April 20 through May 10. Top harvest counties were Franklin with 899 birds harvested, Callaway with 699 and Laclede with 651.
In Grundy County, 400 birds were harvested with 367 being adult gobblers. There were 27 juvenile gobblers taken and six bearded hens rounded out the county total.
Other local county harvest totals were 480 in Daviess County, 623 in Harrison County, 526 in Linn County, 446 in Livingston County, 451 in Mercer County, 569 in Putnam County and 609 in Sullivan County.
Young turkey hunters also harvested 2,724 birds during the 2020 spring youth season, April 4 and 5, bringing the overall 2020 spring turkey harvest to 41,454.
Grundy County saw 25 birds taken during the youth portion of the season. Of those turkeys, 23 were adult gobblers and the remaining two turkeys harvested were juvenile gobblers.
Last year, young turkey hunters harvested 2,546 birds during the spring youth season and hunters harvested 36,249 during the regular spring season for a 2019 spring season total harvest of 38,795 birds.
“Even though nonresident permit sales were down this year, there were about 9,600 more spring turkey hunters overall than in 2019 due to an increase in resident permit sales,” MDC turkey biologist Reina Tyl said. “When turkey hunting participation increases, we expect to see a subsequent increase in turkey harvest. It’s great to see that more Missourians were able to get out into the turkey woods this year.”
MDC had one report of a non-fatal hunting incident during the 2020 spring turkey season. It involved one hunter mistakenly shooting another hunter.
More information about turkey hunting in Missouri, as well as county-by-county harvest totals, is available on the MDC website at mdc.mo.gov.