The Outdoor Journal Spring means Turkey Season

The first turkey that ever came to me on the ground did it a long time ago. I sat there with my hands shaking and my breath short and my heart hammering so hard I could not understand why he could not hear it. The last turkey that came to me last spring had exactly the same effect, and the day that this does not happen to me is the day that I quit.                                                                                                    Tom Kelly- The Tenth Legion

The government might think moving daylight savings time to the first week of March makes spring come early, but it doesn’t. The numbers of hours of daylight and dark will hit the equal point on March 19, marking the arrival of the spring equinox, and what we have always called the first day of spring. And spring means green grass, crappie biting, mushrooms, gardening and above all if you are a turkey hunter, spring means turkey season. Spring mornings in the woods with wood ducks skittering thorough the trees, woodcocks putting on a show a daylight and Wild Turkey gobblers rattling the woods as the first rays of sunlight hit the tree tops make the end of winter official.  A few close encounters during a spring morning with a wild Turkey make the memories of long winter days fade away.  The up close experiences get seared into our memory banks and never get old. 

Tom Kelly’s quote used in the epigram of this article pretty much says it all.  Most turkey hunters have endured mosquitoes, loss of sleep, wet clothes, and humiliation handed out from a bird with a brain the size of a peanut only to say on the way back to their vehicle,  “Man, that was great.”  Turkeys will do that to a person.

Missouri’s 2020 Spring Turkey season will be a tough one, given the poor hatches of the last several springs. Youth season will be April 4-5^th, while the regular Spring Turkey Season opens on April 20^th, closing May 10^th.   Get out there and enjoy the spring.