Vermont’s Spring Turkey Hunting Starts Soon

April 12, 2022  |  By Waterbury Roundabout

In 1969-70, Vermont Fish and Wildlife re-established native wild turkeys with the release of 31 wild birds from New York. Today, Vermont has an estimated wild turkey population of more than 45,000. Vermont Fish and Wildlife photo by John Hall

Spring turkey hunting season gets underway soon with youth and novice turkey hunting weekend April 23-24 and the regular spring turkey season open for the entire month of May.

“The youth and novice turkey hunting weekend provides an excellent opportunity for experienced hunters to teach young or new hunters how to safely and successfully hunt wild turkeys,” said Chris Bernier, Vermont’s wild turkey biologist. 

A youngster must be age 15 or younger to participate in the youth hunting weekend. They need to complete a hunter education course and possess a hunting license, and a turkey hunting license with a free youth turkey hunting tag. 

Anyone who has purchased their first hunting license in the past 12 months and is 16 or older may hunt turkeys as a novice April 23-24.  

Youth and novice hunters must be accompanied by an unarmed licensed adult over 18. Hunters may shoot from one half hour before sunrise to 5 p.m. and landowner permission is required to hunt on private land. Young and novice hunters may take one bearded turkey April 23-24 and two in May. 

Hours for shooting during the regular season in May begin 30 minutes before sunrise and end at noon. Hunters may take two bearded turkeys. 

Hunters may use a shotgun or archery equipment to hunt turkeys and hunters are required to report their turkeys within 48 hours to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department either at a big game reporting station or online at vtfishandwildlife.com.

In 2021, youth hunters took 708 turkeys and novices reported 35 in the April weekend hunt. In the regular season, hunters reported taking 5,024 gobblers, according to Fish & Wildlife. 

Adding the 426 turkeys taken in the fall season, Bernier calculated that Vermont hunters “harvested in excess of 140,000 servings of locally sourced, free range turkey meat in 2021. ”