For the last decade, most of the turkey talk has been doom and gloom—bad hatches, nest predators, wet springs, and seasons that felt a lot quieter than they used to. But if you dig into the reports and listen to what biologists and hunters are actually seeing on the ground, the story isn’t all bad. There are pockets of the country where poult numbers are climbing, two- and three-year-old birds are starting to stack up again, and spring harvest is finally nudging in the right direction. It’s not some magical comeback and you still have to work for them, but in these states you’ve got better odds of hearing multiple gobblers at daylight instead of wondering if any survived last year. Here are 15 places where the trend line is finally moving up instead of sliding backward.
Arkansas: Delta birds finally turning a corner
Arkansas was one of the first states to ring the alarm on turkey decline, but the last few years look a lot less bleak. Brood surveys since about 2020 have shown better poult numbers, and the 2023–2025 spring seasons have come in with noticeably higher harvest totals compared to the slump years before that.
You’re not looking at a full-blown boom, but in key regions—especially portions of the Ozarks and Ouachitas—hunters are seeing more jakes roll into longbeards. Habitat work, predator trapping on some private ground, and tighter regulations are all part of the picture. If you wrote Arkansas off five years ago, it’s worth another look before daylight this spring.
Iowa: Good hatches paying off across farm country
Iowa’s always had the terrain—timber fingers, creek bottoms, and row-crop edges—but the last couple of years, the birds finally cooperated too. State biologists reported another “good hatch” in 2024 across much of the state, stacking more young birds into a population that was already holding its own.
That stronger recruitment shows up when you’re glassing field edges at fly-down time. Classic eastern third timber still carries most of the load, but pockets in the Loess Hills and scattered woodlots out west are quietly improving. Tags still sell well, but numbers on the ground have hunters talking about “the best it’s looked in a while” instead of wondering what went wrong.
Illinois: Record harvest signals a real rebound
Illinois has one of the clearest “trending up” stories in the country right now. The 2024 spring turkey harvest set a new state record at more than 17,000 birds, and biologists have said the population appears to be on an upward trend after several years of better-than-average reproduction…