Today is a holiday of sorts. It’s the start of the first official turkey hunting season of the spring. I’ve said this for years and will continue the streak by saying it again: the Wisconsin spring turkey hunting season is a hunter’s reward for enduring another long cold winter.

It’s been just over five months since the deer gun and archery seasons ended and depending on the level of cold you were able to endure, the outdoor options were limited. Now that’s all in the rear-view mirror and today is a day to celebrate the spring thunder chicken, the eastern wild turkey.

For review, in 1976 Wisconsin traded 135 ruffed grouse to Missouri in exchange for 29 wild turkeys. That was the start of the modern-day turkey story in Wisconsin. The initial release in Vernon County led to the first hunting season in 1983. In those first few hunting seasons it was difficult to draw a tag and it wasn’t unusual to wait two or three years for one. Fast forward to the here and now, and hunters have the option to not only get an extra tag, but multiple tags.

So let’s take a deep dive into our all-time favorite spring game bird with some fun facts like: do you know how many feathers make up a tom turkeys tail fan? Well, there are always exceptions to prove the rule but way more often than not, 18 feathers make up a fan.

How many eggs does a hen lay in a season? The answer requires more of a moving target kind of number because it can range from eight to 18. If you want to simplify the answer by seeking an average, we could call it a dozen. As long as we’re on the subject of eggs, a hen only lays one egg per day. Only after the hen has completed laying eggs does she sit on the entire clutch for a certain period of time and trigger the eggs to start growing and hatching. If the eggs are lost to predation, a hen may try but a second clutch is usually smaller. 

How fast can turkeys run? If you have ever tried to run down a wounded bird you know the answer is quicker than a human and slower than another turkey load shell. The real actual number is 20-25 mph.  

How fast can turkeys fly? This answer surprised me in that turkeys, in short bursts, can fly 50-55 mph. I guess the reason it surprised me was that a bird sailing along with a 3-foot wing span doesn’t look like it’s going that fast.

How long do turkeys live? A typical wild turkey lives between three and five years. Although it is extremely rare, there have been documented birds living 13-15 years. Of the newly hatched birds, only 4 out of 10 birds live longer than a month because of predation from bobcats, racoons and other critters.

By anyone’s standard, you cannot argue with the success of Wisconsin’s turkey program. Those initial 29 turkeys brought into the state 50 years ago now number between 350,000 and 400,000 birds. Wisconsin truly hit a home run with that program.  

So what happened to the 135 ruffed grouse traded to Missouri? Well, the quick answer is not much. They didn’t take and that state has continued to try and supplement their natural population over the years with birds from not only Wisconsin but Minnesota and Indiana.  In other words, we won that trade big time.

Good luck this spring. Be safe and remember to send in your harvest photos.

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