Spring Turkey Overview
It’s hard to believe another spring turkey season is behind us and its officially summer.
Like every spring in the Midwest April and May 2022 temperatures fluctuated from the 20’s to the 90’s, many days were windy with rain, sleet, and snow. Thank Goodness for ground blinds, excluding the day temps in the 90’s.
Turkey numbers have been on the decline across the country, but the Midwest has some of the best turkey hunting in the nation. This season we had members travel from 26 states to hunt MAHA leased land.
The average member hunted a handful of days while some local members hunted on and off through the entire season. We had 204 spring turkey hunters total and estimate a 1.1 average per member which is a total of 224 birds. That’s an impressive number anywhere.
Several hunters didn’t have any luck and expressed concern the numbers were down, while others saw and heard birds everywhere they hunted. We had 5 hunters hunt all three states and to our knowledge no one completed the MAHA slam, which is harvesting 5 mature toms total.
One father son team harvested 8 mature toms and another took 6. A couple members harvested 4 birds each and several 3 and two toms each.
It was inspiring to hear the amount of jake sightings. One member reported 6 in one group and 3 in another on the same day on an 80-acre farm. Next year there should be a good number of two-year-olds to work with. Be assured we keep all feedback strictly confidential.
A big thank you to everyone that responded to our feedback request. Feedback is very helpful in our lease evaluation process. Some landowners mandate feedback in our lease agreement to help manage the wildlife on their land. Members that deny feedback to the persons providing the land they hunt on could be replaced by others that are willing to do so.
We’ve always expressed spring turkey season flows smoothy and there is always plenty of land for
everyone to turkey hunt each day of the season. Like all seasons, some farms are more popular than others, but we always have many farms that don’t get hunted which have birds tucked away on the back side.
It doesn’t get any better than a camera shoot after harvesting a nice tom. The smell of the buds on the trees and fresh growth of plants and grass is hard to beat.
The dog days of summer are setting in this week with the temps in the upper 90’s all week.
Be Safe and enjoy the summer,
MAHA Staff
