Early Turkey Season Producing Mixed Action Across the South

Hunters across the South are facing various challenges, from henned-up gobblers to heavy hunting pressure, but many are still tagging birds thanks to patience and persistence. (Photo by Tes Jolly)

Southern hunters are reporting success despite tough hunting conditions and shifting bird behavior. From first-time youth hunters tagging memorable birds in South Carolina to pressured gobblers going quiet in Florida and drought conditions continuing in Texas, hunters are seeing turkeys, but closing the deal is taking patience, persistence, and good timing.

Young hunters hit the woods during South Carolina’s youth season for the National Wild Turkey Federation’s 2026 JAKES Hunt of a Lifetime. Dal Dyches, NWTF National Board President, and several landowners came together to host six youth who’d never harvested a turkey before. They all received a boat-load of hunting gear with each getting get a custom call from a South Carolina call maker. According to the reports, three were lucky enough to harvest turkeys. Birds gobbled good early and again after leaving their hens mid-morning.

Timber 2 Table Editor Michael Pendley returned home to Kentucky after hunting north Florida, where he said the birds kicked his butt and sent him home empty handed.

“We hunted both Eastern and Osceola birds and they were extremely quiet. I heard only one bird gobble on the roost,” Pendley says. “I knew that the birds were around based on the tracks and droppings along the sandy two-track roads. But the pressure was extremely high. There were several trucks out cruising the forest service roads before and just after daylight, prospecting for a gobble. Just about every two track I walked had multiple sets of fresh boot tracks. I heard two shots in five days of hunting. A good friend who is local down there was hunting nearby on private land and was having better luck hearing gobbles and working birds. Most of the sign I found was along hardwood-lined creeks and rivers and around fresh forest service-controlled burns.”

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Pendley plans to hunt in Kentucky for a week, and then he will head back to Florida to try again.

The Osceola turkeys cooperated in south-central Florida for Turkeys for Tomorrow (TFT) CEO Jason Lupardus. "The cooler temps and fog had birds gobbling sporadically until the sun burned off the fog. Once birds hit the ground, they did get tight-lipped, for the most part. We had five 3-plus-year-old birds come into range and go home with our group. Shane Profitt harvested his first Osceola, and he might still be singing about this one for years to come," Lupardus said.

Patience paid off for Realtree.com Editor Will Brantley during his recent Texas hunt. “I was there for the North Zone opener with my buddy Miles. The gobblers were really henned up, just gobbling a few times on the limb and then going silent after fly-down for the first several hours of the day. But we stuck with it, and ended up having a couple great hunts with birds that came in gobbling hard. One was at noon, and the other was at 6 p.m. Sometimes Texas Rios can seem easy compared to Easterns in the hardwoods, so it was good to have to work for these a bit. We put in a lot of walking miles, calling and glassing in between turkeys. We saw a lot of jakes, and that's always encouraging. It's dry down there, same as everywhere right now, so a few good rains this spring would really help out.”

Jason Hardin, Texas Parks and Wildlife wild turkey program leader, was in McMullen County near Tilden this week, where he says the conditions are still dry, hot and windy.

“Birds are still coming to calls and being harvested, but conditions are not ideal. The only green vegetation was mesquite. No green grass or flowers. Fortunately, a lot of the country just north of Tilden didn’t look terrible with some green grass and wildflowers.”

Last weekend, Hardin and his son were in Kerr County where his son took a mature bird.

“That area is dry, but not exceptionally. There are some wildflowers blooming and birds were gobbling. Green herbaceous cover is available and birds are being harvested. Most of the state is in a drought and we need rain, but a few areas like Tilden and father south are exceptionally dry,” Hardin said.

It’s peak breeding in Tennessee right now and land manager Michael Arnold says most of the gobblers are henned up.

“All week at work I've seen small groups of hens with one to as many as five gobblers. I've seen several actually being bred over the past few days. I came around a corner Tuesday and there were five gobblers and a handful hens, and one was breeding a hen. They literally ignored me. Gobbling for the most part is on the roost, and then late morning they get fired up, but only until they call another hen up,” Arnold said.

He says several hens are alone and showing signs that they are nesting already.

“Hopefully by opening day a lot of the breeding will be done and the gobblers will be lonely. If not, it's gonna take some patience while waiting for them to leave the hens. Late morning and midday hunts should pay off,” Arnold said.

Michael Pitts hunted in Huntsville, Alabama, last week where things got pretty tough.

“Most of the gobblers had hens with them and were content, and not coming in to calls. They were gobbling great, but would not commit to our setups when trying to work them. I think in a couple of weeks they’ll respond a lot better. It’s still early in the game, and this time of year, you are typically dealing with henned-up birds. We actually saw a hen getting bred by a gobbler. As season moves on, you will be able to find some gobblers by themselves, and they’ll be more apt to coming into your setup to investigate.

Bert Moore with Schooler Outdoor Marketing also encountered henned-up birds during his Alabama hunts.

“My turkeys are gobbling on the limb but are quiet on the ground, probably due to the influx of coyotes I'm seeing lately. Gobblers and jakes are hanging tight with three to four hens in every group. It’s very hard to pull them away. I actually found a hen sitting on a clutch of eggs Monday morning. In my opinion, Alabama messed up by pushing season back by 10 days. We need to return to March 15 as the opening day. March 25 is two weeks too late,” Moore said.

Like Moore, outdoor photographer Tes Jolly is seeing nesting birds.

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“Here in Alabama the nesting period seems well underway. I observed jakes tagging along at a safe distance with two of the local toms I’ve been photographing. I’m hearing good gobbling on the roost and hearing one or two that continue on the ground for a few minutes. We’re seeing an increasing number of single hens around the farm. There’s still very little in the way of precipitation and not much in the forecast that would help break this drought,” Jolly said.

NWTF Editor Matt Stewart hunted the last week of March in Alabama’s Fayette, Bibb and Talladega counties where the birds gobbled steadily in the mornings with high barometric pressure throughout the week, but the hens carried them off after they hit the ground.

“They would sporadically gobble later in the day after leaving the hens. High winds and colder temperatures during one of the days made things difficult in open terrain. One turkey rodeo in West Alabama with 144 hunters reported a 20% harvest rate. Gobblers should be more receptive to calls in the coming weeks as hens begin nesting,” Stewart said.

Georgia’s opening week was good for Ricky Lackey, NWTF regional biologist.

“Gobbling wasn't great in the south part of the state, but birds seemed pretty responsive. We had some success. Georgia’s statewide harvest for opening weekend was up from last year, based off the Georgia DNR online reporting.”

It went well for David Blanton as well, who killed a Georgia bird last Saturday after calling in a group of six mature toms.

“They didn’t gobble until after they had flown down after daylight. They had no hens around at all,” Blanton said.

NWTF board member Terry Rohm said he and his hunting group got a rough start during Georgia’s youth weekend.

"On youth weekend here in Georgia, Stanley Wymbs, my son, JD, and his son, Liam, and I had an adventure for sure. I hit a deer on the way to our meeting place. My son pulled in the woods road and ran a stick through his radiator. And that was all before daylight. We heard one turkey gobble way off two times,” Rohm said. "On the second morning, Stanley took us to a different spot, with fresh burn spots still smoldering. Turkeys were gobbling before daylight, at least five or so. Things just didn’t work out, but Liam had a blast and got to hear the woods on fire with gobblers."

With hens beginning to nest and gobblers expected to break away from their flocks soon, hunters are hoping for more responsive birds and better opportunities in the weeks ahead. For now, those willing to adapt are finding that even a challenging spring can still deliver unforgettable moments in the turkey woods.