Tennessee Turkey Hunting
Legal Hunting Hours
- Thirty minutes before legal sunrise to legal sunset.
Legal Hunting Equipment
- Shotguns using ammunition with No. 4 shot or smaller. No restriction on the number of rounds in the magazine.
- Archery equipment (longbows, recurve bows, compound bows, and crossbows).
- Sighting devices, including scopes, are legal. Night vision, infrared, and other devices using artificial light to locate wildlife are illegal.
- A pre-charged pneumatic gun (airbow), which shoots an arrow, is legal for all hunters to use during statewide turkey gun seasons.
Prohibited Acts (see General Regulations for more details)
- Baiting, possessing rifles, using handguns, possessing or using electronic calls, using live decoys, and loaded ammunition larger than No. 4 shot are prohibited. Turkeys may not be shot or stalked from a boat in Dyer, Haywood, Lauderdale, Obion, Shelby, or Tipton counties.
Special Regulations
- A licensed turkey hunter who has filled his/her bag limit or does not possess a valid permit for a quota hunt, may accompany another turkey hunter who has a valid permit (except on WMAs where prohibited) and assist them in calling, but may not have turkey hunting weapons in their possession.
- On a Young Sportsman Hunt, youths must be accompanied by a non-hunting adult 21 years of age or older, who must remain in a position to take immediate control of the hunting device and is not required to have a license. Multiple youths may be accompanied by a single qualifying adult.
- Turkeys must remain intact while afield until tagged and checked in.
- All turkeys harvested on public land hunts count toward statewide bag limits; there are no bonus turkeys.
Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) (See WMA Regulations for more details)
- Many WMAs are open with statewide seasons and bag limits, though some have restricted dates or quota hunts.
- Calling or attempting to call turkeys using any means to mimic the sounds made by turkeys is prohibited from March 1 to the opening day of spring turkey hunts on all WMAs.
- See the Turkey Quota Hunt page for WMA spring turkey quota hunt application information.
- Fanning or reaping turkeys on WMAs is prohibited.
| Statewide | Season Dates | Bag Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Archery Only | Sept. 26 - Oct. 30, 2026 Nov. 2 - Nov. 6, 2026 |
One (1) male turkey. No bearded hens allowed. |
| Shotgun/Archery | Oct. 17 - 30, 2026 | |
Open in all counties, except closed in Crockett, Dyer, Giles, Haywood, Lake, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Lincoln, Shelby, Tipton, and Wayne counties. During the fall turkey season, a turkey hunter may not be in possession of both archery equipment and shotguns and/or rifles. Any turkey harvested during the fall season counts toward the statewide fall season bag limit of one (1). |
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Spring Turkey Seasons Dates & Limits
All counties are open to spring turkey seasons; however, there are some exceptions on WMAs and public lands. Birds may be harvested from any combination of Turkey Management Units, not to exceed the statewide season limit. General Turkey Hunting Regulations apply. Spring Turkey Shooting Hours are thirty (30) minutes before legal sunrise to sunset.
All hens (including bearded hens) are illegal to harvest.
| Statewide | Season Dates | Bag Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Young Sportsman* | March 27 - 28, 2027 | One (1) male turkey per day, counts toward spring season bag of two (2), only one can be a jake. No bearded hens allowed. |
| General Season | April 3 - May 16, 2027 | |
An adult gobbler is defined by having one of the following: wing feathers have white barring all the way to the tip, tail feathers are the same length, beard is longer than 6 inches, or a spur is at least 1/2 inch long. All hens (including bearded hens) are illegal to harvest. All counties are open to spring turkey seasons, however there are some exceptions on public land. *Any turkey harvested during the Young Sportsman Hunt counts toward the statewide spring season limit of two (2). Statewide Spring Turkey Young Sportsman Hunt Ages 6-16. One (1) male turkey per day, which counts toward the statewide bag of two (2), only one can be a jake. Each young sportsman must be accompanied by a non-hunting adult, 21 years of age or older, who must remain in a position to take immediate control of the hunting device. Youth 10 years of age or older must meet Hunter Education requirements. Multiple youths may be accompanied by a single non-hunting adult, who is not required to have a license. |
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Wild Turkey Management & Biological Reports
Through concerted effort by TWRA staff and NGO partners, including the National Wild Turkey Federation and the Tennessee Wildlife Federation, wild turkey restoration has been a conservation success story in Tennessee. The turkey population was restored from a low of a few thousand birds in only 18 counties in the 1950s to over several hundred thousand wild turkeys spread across all 95 counties today.
Now that wild turkeys have been restored to Tennessee, our goal is to ensure that a vigorous, self-sustaining population is maintained in all suitable areas of the state. Monitoring population status and trends is a key component of our management, with data tying directly into an adaptive harvest management framework for managing wild turkeys (similar to how waterfowl are managed in North America).
TWRA monitors populations in several ways. First, we track harvest numbers through mandatory harvest reporting. When a hunter harvests a big game animal—including wild turkeys—they are required to report it to the agency. Data from reported harvest provides us with detailed information such as the distribution of the harvest throughout the duration of the hunting season, distribution of harvest across the state, and the number of successful hunters, as well as total reported harvest for the season. TWRA posts these results online in the GoOutDoorsTennessee Website - Hunters Tool Box.
After the season, TWRA conducts a post-season hunter survey to collect additional harvest information, particularly hunter participation (how many people actually hunted, whether or not they were successful) and hunter effort (how much effort hunters expended in terms of days of hunting), as well as overall satisfaction with the recent hunting season. From participation, effort, and harvest information, TWRA estimates a harvest success rate, or harvest per day of hunting. This metric provides a better index of population trends because it takes into account both harvest and hunter effort. By itself, total harvest is often more closely related to hunter numbers (and effort) than to turkey population numbers.
The last piece of data TWRA collects is the summer wild turkey survey. This survey records observations of wild turkeys made by agency staff, cooperators, and the public throughout the summer months. Data collected sheds light on annual reproductive success as well as gobbler carry-over from the previous hunting season. Taken together, the various harvest and productivity data provide TWRA with an understanding of the current state of wild turkey numbers and whether they are falling, increasing, or holding steady.
Wild turkey numbers in many parts of the state increased rapidly during restoration, reached a peak, and then declined for a time before stabilizing around carrying capacity, a natural occurrence for most restored wildlife populations. Moving forward, localized short-term fluctuations in population numbers are expected because wild turkey reproduction, which primarily drives turkey populations, can be particularly affected by weather and other factors, especially when a population has reached the habitat’s carrying capacity.
Since weather conditions and other factors vary greatly across the state from year to year, some flocks will be doing well while others may be experiencing a downturn. Good production in one area can offset poor production in another and provide alternate places for hunters to hunt when local populations are low. Fortunately, as a result of restoration efforts, Tennessee has a wide distribution of healthy flocks, which can absorb declines in some local populations without a significant drop in overall population numbers.
For more information about the status of wild turkeys and monitoring efforts by TWRA, see our annual wild turkey status reports and other technical reports below.
Archived Biological Technical Reports
(ADA reports available upon request)
2024
2023
2022
2021
You can submit a records request via email for previous years or ADA-compliant reports.
