Mississippi’s spring turkey season opened Tuesday, March 15 and ends the first of May.
And the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks says the season looks solid this spring.
As hunters await the opener, many questions arise regarding the turkey flock’s status. Will there be more? How was the hatch? Which area of the state will be best? The answers to all these questions are covered below in this spring season forecast.
Hunters should be proud to hear that no matter what else, the 2022 season should be better than last year.
In every corner of Mississippi, the 2021 season was one of the toughest of the past two decades.
According to MDWFP’s estimates, just under 22,000 gobblers were taken by 53,000 turkey hunters. Less than 10,000 were reported through Game Check.
Harvest rates by participants in the Spring Gobbler Hunting Survey (SGHS) were as low as they’ve ever been.
Regionally, higher elevation properties along the Mississippi River, along with the southeastern Pine Belt, both seem well primed for a memorable 2022 season.
THE DELTA
In terms of wild turkeys, the Delta is a land of haves and have-nots.
The region’s interior has limited habitat and the once prime public turkey woods in the south Delta have been decimated by repeated flooding.
As a result, populations in the region have become increasingly restricted to higher-elevation ground along the Mississippi River’s margin.
For these, the 2022 season could be outstanding.
Hunters on private hunting clubs behind the levee reported a seven-fold increase in jake observations in 2021.
Hunters on these tracts should consider themselves lucky and anticipate a sizable 2-year-old gobbler cohort with fast paced spring action.
On the other hand, lower elevation properties and those in the interior south Delta are still rebuilding from a near complete population collapse due to flooding in 2019.
