Arkansas youth turkey hunt success continues 8-year climb

Hunters from 6 to 15 years old checked 1,494 turkeys Saturday and Sunday during this year’s special youth turkey hunt, roughly 30 birds more than last year’s hunt and more than 300 turkeys than 2024’s hunt numbers.

According to David Moscicki, AGFC Turkey Program coordinator, the increase was likely due to a combination of factors, including excellent weather during the hunt, a few strong years of reproduction and an increase in the number of adult gobblers on the landscape.

“We saw good reproduction two and three years ago, and last year saw decent reproduction as well, so there are more birds out there,” Moscicki said. “We also have seen low jake harvest in the last few years by the youths, who are the only hunters allowed to harvest one, so that means more mature gobblers are carrying over from each year and more of those birds out there are mature compared to years past. Combined with good weather that let youth hunters take good advantage of being the first ones out in their area to hunt, and you have all the ingredients for a great hunting experience.”

Moscicki says the youth hunt harvest being nearly identical to last year’s is good, and that the harvest is actually 14 percent higher than the average of the last two years. Factors such as weather can play a large role in a hunt as short as two days, but Moscicki works with long-term trend data to help shed light on the population. In fact, Arkansas’s youth hunt harvest has seen a slow but steady increase each year since 2018, when only 630 birds were checked during the two-day hunt.

“We’ve really had five years of stable season structures with a more conservative season in place since 2020, and we’ve seen five years of slow, steady growth,” Moscicki said. “That gives us confidence that we’re doing the right thing. If you see too rapid of a harvest increase, it could actually be bad, meaning that you might be overshooting the capacity of the population. If that happens, you will probably see a decrease soon. Seeing a slow increase is better, and I expect it to level off eventually.”

In addition to the slight increase in total harvest, Moscicki noted that fewer than 200 of the turkeys taken by youths were jakes (1-year-old gobblers).

“Again, that points to more 2-year-and-older male turkeys being out there from the combination of good reproduction and higher numbers of jakes surviving by being protected by our current regulations,” Moscicki said.

In 2003, 4,610 (nearly 25 percent) of the 19,934 turkey harvest were jakes. In 2011, the AGFC enacted a “no jakes” rule, allowing only youths to harvest jakes, and even then, they may only take one jake as part of their annual two-bird bag limit.

“Even youths want to get that big mature gobbler if they can,” Moscicki said. “And I believe our hunters and mentors understand more about the need to protect those jakes, which is helping lead to the increased reduction in jake harvest. That hopefully will help us next year with gobbler carryover and reproduction as well.”

The youth hunt normally accounts for 10-15 percent of the overall harvest in any given year, and Moscicki expects that trend to continue, with the possibility of another excellent harvest this year.

“I think we’re going to have another one of those good years with the harvest close to or breaking 12,000 gobblers this year,” Moscicki said. “The slightly different season structure has me cautiously optimistic, but we really don’t want to see a spike in harvest that could indicate we are overharvesting our birds. We have some room to grow, but we need to do so slowly.”

Regular turkey hunting in zones 2 and 2A began on Monday, April 13. Hunting in Zone 3 started April 6. Turkey hunters may begin taking birds in zones 1 and 1A on April 20.

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CUTLINES:

BOY WITH BIRD
Knox Cook was one of more than 1,400 hunters aged 6-15 who bagged a gobbler last weekend. Photo courtesy Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation. 

GIRL WITH BIRD
Reese Welch shot this impressive limbhanger during the 2026 Arkansas Youth Turkey Hunt. Photo courtesy Shana Welch.

GRAPH
Turkey harvest during the youth hunt has slowly but steadily increased since 2018, indicating a positive trend in population growth. AGFC image.