Turkey Dates, Rules & Regulations
2025 Private Land Turkey Zones
- Zones follow county lines with the exception of the inside of the Mississippi river levee in Crittenden, Lee, Mississippi, Phillips and St. Francis county. See the current Hunting Guidebook for WMA Zone info.
Regular Turkey Season Dates
Zone 1: April 21-29, 2025
Zone 2: April 21-May 11, 2025
Special Youth Turkey Hunt
Zones 1 and 2: April 12-13, 2025
- Youth must have a free Customer Identification Number (CID) to hunt and check a turkey. To set up a youth’s customer profile click here. Select New Customer. Once you fill out your youth’s information, make sure to add the free Customer ID to your cart (under the Hunting tab) once in the licensing system and complete the checkout process.
- Bag Limit during the Special Youth Turkey Hunt is one legal turkey or jake.
- Only hunters 6 to 15 years old may hunt turkeys during the special youth turkey hunt.
- Youths who have not completed hunter education must be under the direct supervision of an adult who is 21 or older.
Statewide Turkey Bag Limit
- The statewide bag limit is two legal turkeys (no jakes or females).
- Exception: Hunters 6 to 15 years old may harvest one jake as part of their two-bird limit during the season (including the youth hunt).
- No more than one legal turkey (not a jake or female) may be taken during the first seven days of the regular season.
- No more than one legal turkey (not a jake or female) may be taken per day.
- It is illegal for any hunter to harvest a bearded hen.
- Bag limit on all individual wildlife management areas is one legal turkey (not a jake or female).
- Hunters may not exceed any zone (Statewide or WMA) harvest limits.
Turkey Hunting Regulations
- Only shotguns (10 gauge and smaller) and archery equipment (including crossbows) are legal for turkey hunting. Shot larger than No. 2 common shot is prohibited.
- Wild turkeys may not be hunted over bait. An area is considered baited if any food (including shelled, shucked or unshucked corn, chops, wheat or other feed that could serve as a lure or attractant for wildlife) is present or has been present in the last 10 days. (An area is considered baited for 10 days following complete removal of the bait.) There is no set distance from a baited site that a hunter may shoot a turkey.
- Turkeys may not be taken from 30 minutes after sunset until 30 minutes before sunrise.
- Turkeys may not be hunted with the use of traps, snares, nets, hooks, explosives, dogs or live decoys. Hunters may not possess electronic or mechanically powered or driven callers.
- Hunters must be at least 6 years old to harvest a wild turkey.
- Releasing domestically reared turkeys into the wild is illegal.
- Capturing wild turkeys or collecting their eggs is illegal.
