By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

Iowa’s spring turkey hunting season wrapped up with a record harvest of 16,059 birds, topping the record of 14-843 set last season.

DNR Wildlife Research Biologist Jim Coffey says the records are one good thing to come from the dry weather. “We’ve had three good years of back-to-back hatches, and then just some exceptional weather that just made for good turkey hunting conditions,” he says. The weather allowed more young turkeys to survive after hatching. “Typically cold wet weather is not good for ground nesting birds so drought conditions we tend to see a bump up in production,” Coffey says. “It can be too dry as you get farther west that can have an impact, but we kind of hit the sweet spot the last few years.”

He says more hunters chased the elusive wild turkeys. “So success rate right now will probably be about the same and that 25% category, but we did see an increase in license sales as well. And that’s usually an indication of people noticing more birds on the landscape or more game to chase,” he says. “And so we always usually see a little bit of an uptick in hunter numbers when we see an uptick in populations.”

Coffey says bagging a wild turkey is one of the tougher challenges. “They can be very difficult, they’re very weary they’ve got great eyesight and great hearing and they don’t give you a lot of room for error if you’re a new inexperienced hunter and even a seasoned hunter that Turkey is a difficult query to get after,” Coffey says. Coffey says the turkey numbers could be strong again next season. “This year with extreme rain we’re having will probably you know speculating see a downturn in the population. But we have to remember that it’s usually the two year old birds are what carry the numbers,” he says. “And so next year is birds will really be the ones that were hatched last year and 2023. So we should have good turkey numbers for another year or two depending on how the weather lays out the next couple of years.”

Coffey says wild turkeys aren’t be the same as the ones you buy at the grocery store. “They’re a little drier because they don’t have the fat that a domestic bird does. And of course domestic birds are bred for that delicious taste and that moist moisture content,” Coffey says. “We have to remember that most domestic birds are less than six months old. And most of the males that we’re harvesting in the field of the wild, they’re probably two years old. So kind of think of a fit athlete. The muscle is a little tighter, a little more structure to it, and not as much fat in it.”

Hunters report taking turkeys in all 99 counties — with a high of 649 birds bagged in Clayton County to a low of three in Osceola County.