2022 Spring Turkey Season Forecast

What’s in store for Magnolia State turkey hunters? Here is a regional breakdown.

The spring turkey season is as good as here. Youth season opens on March 8 and the regular open season begins on March 15 and ends May 1. The forecast looks good for most and should be a far better season this year compared to last year.

Any predictions that can be made are thanks to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) and the information they capture from a combination of summer brood survey data and hunter observations collected as a part of the Spring Gobbler Hunting Survey (SGHS).

Good news

“The good news is that this season should be better for many, if not most, hunters in the state,” said Adam Butler, MDWFP Turkey Program Coordinator, “When making predictions about the upcoming year, the 2-year-old gobbler cohort is crucial, which makes a look back to the hatch of 2020 a critical indicator, and this is where we find reason to be hopeful.”

The statewide poult per hen ratio from the 2020 hatch was above the 10-year average. More impressively, more than 50 percent of the hens observed in some regions were accompanied by poults, which is some of the better production Mississippi has seen in quite some time. Not surprisingly, statewide jake sightings were up 25 percent last year. In fact, despite the almost universally depressed gobbling activity, turkey observations were up in most places, which bodes well for 2022.

Bad news

“The bad news is that the good news won’t be shared equally,” Butler said.

The delta, southeast, and east-central regions seem to be primed for a solid season, but numbers will be off in the historically turkey-rich southwestern and north regions. Both southwest and north averaged 1.4 poults per hen in 2020, well below the level needed to sustain populations. Unsurprisingly jake sightings were under the 10-year average for both regions last year.

Here is a glance at the five wild turkey management regions of MDWFP.

North

North Mississippi has had a poor run of hatches for the past five years. The region only averaged 1.3 poults per hen this past summer — well below what is needed to maintain population stability. Jake sightings were down about 20 percent last season, further indications to temper expectations in 2022.

“Properties with the right habitat will still have good numbers of birds,” Butler said. “All indications are that turkey numbers have been sliding downward in north Mississippi for the past several years. Nonetheless, I still consider a lot of this region to hold some of our state’s most abundant populations.”

Top counties for last season’s harvest are Lafayette and Marshall. Holly Springs National Forest is the region’s most visible public option, but some of the Corps of Engineers properties are strong, too. Chickasaw WMA will see heavy pressure but for good reason.

Delta

Data indicates that the lands along the Mississippi River had a huge hatch two years ago in 2020. This was corroborated by a seven-fold increase in the jake sightings last year, which is the best increase in the state.

“The population is all over the place in the delta,” Butler said. “Higher elevation properties behind the mainline levee system have likely seen dramatic jumps in numbers over the last two years, some are reporting their highest numbers in a long time. On the other hand, lower elevation properties and properties in the interior of the south delta have been decimated by recent flooding and are basically building back from near zero and haven’t climbed far enough yet to even be considered close to decent turkey hunting.”

Public land opportunities are very limited in the delta region and have almost been curtailed because of flooding. The region’s top county for gobbler harvest was Bolivar in 2021.

East-Central

This region has posted steadily increasing hatches the past four years. Both the 2020 and the 2021 hatches were more than adequate to result in population growth and expansion.

“Most hunters would likely agree that the population in east-central Mississippi is not what it was 15-20 years ago,” Butler said. “Nonetheless, numbers over the nearer term — say the last 2 to 3 years — have been back on the upswing. I will be very surprised if hunters in east-central Mississippi don’t come away well pleased by a noticeable uptick in turkey numbers during the 2022 season.”

East-central Mississippi is well blessed with several public turkey hunting options. The Bienville National Forest and its complex of three Wildlife Management Areas are always good, solid stand-by producers. The top county for harvest last year was Attala.

Southwest

Indications are that the population in southwest Mississippi has probably been sliding downward for the past several years.

“Southwest Mississippi had good hatches in 2018 and 2019, but unfortunately hasn’t done so well since,” Butler said. “The 2020 hatch, which is where the bulk of this year’s longbeards will come from, was pretty meager. The 2021 hatch was even poorer — it only yielded 1.3 poults per hen, placing it in the bottom fifth of all hatches recorded in the region since the MDWFP began the annual brood survey in 1994.”

Homochitto National Forest is the region’s biggest public land option but reports from last year indicate that bird numbers were off from normal. Top counties for harvest last season were Adams and Copiah.

Southeast

The word is good hatches — three out of the last four hatches have been very good in southeast Mississippi. Both 2020 and 2021 were at or above 2.0 poults per hen, which should result in noticeable population increases.

Jake observations have been trending upwards since 2016. This past season, hunters observed 16.2 jakes per 100 hours hunted, which is the highest observation rate in the state outside of the properties along the Mississippi River.

“Southeast Mississippi may be a real bright spot in the state,” Butler said. “The region has struggled for a long time, but over the last few years, all indicators point toward a steadily increasing turkey population. Harvest totals from Game Check indicate that overall populations are still lower than they are elsewhere, but 2022 may be the year that that narrative flips a bit due to a stellar 2020 hatch.”

There is an abundance of public land in this region. Hunters can look to Little Biloxi WMA, Marion County WMA, and Mason Creek WMA that have delayed season openers starting April 1. This may provide some go-to options when other areas have been heavily pressured. Marion County was top last year for gobbler harvests.

Conclusion

It’s a mixed bag of predictions for the Magnolia State this season, but overall, it looks good. Get out there and get after the spring monarchs. Any hunter that is persistent is sure to find success.

A word from the Turkey Program Coordinator

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) is hard at work trying to make things better for our state’s turkey population and the hunters who pursue them. Here are a couple things that Adam Butler, the Turkey Program Coordinator for MDWFP, points out.

“Mississippi hunters need to know that MDWFP is currently partnering with Mississippi State University to take a critical evaluation of our hunting season framework,” he said. “The regionwide concern for turkeys that we’ve heard over the past several years, along with prominent season changes in other states, has brought a lot of public attention on our very long and liberal season. The research we have going will bring together several different datasets, including results of past studies, hunter observations from the Spring Gobbler Hunting Survey, and Game Check, to try and forecast how different season changes may impact the number of gobblers on the landscape in future years. Additionally, as part of this study, we changed the season framework on five WMAs to April 1 – May 1 for the past three seasons as a case study to see if it improves the hunting. Unfortunately, we do not have any results ready to release quite yet, but we’re close.”

At the time of this writing these case study results are not available, but there may be some initial findings ready to roll out to the public by the time spring turkey season begins.

“Along these same lines, MDWFP responded to public concerns last year by implementing restrictions on nonresidents hunting public land during the opening two weeks of Mississippi’s season,” Butler said. “Essentially, we’ve created a special license endorsement which nonresidents will have to obtain in order to access public lands from March 15-28, and we are controlling the allotment of those licenses via a draw system similar to the system we use for alligators. We’ve seen nonresident license sales double in the last two years. Additionally, delayed openers in several other southern states created a situation where Mississippi public lands were going to just about be the only game in town (besides Florida’s south zone) for a couple weeks in March. The combination of these two things — already skyrocketing nonresident license sales coupled with loss of hunting opportunity in other southern states that once opened concurrently with Mississippi — left us with a potential public land trainwreck in 2022. We hope our new nonresident draw process will bleed off some of the pressure while still allowing for some limited nonresident opportunities.”