Kettle Moraine State Forest
“We have two large blocks of forest in the Southeast Region that are nicely wooded and good turkey habitat,” Ryan said. “These are the northern and southern units of the Kettle Moraine State Forest. There’s lots of hunting pressure because there’s lots of turkeys. Even though the hunting pressure is high, hunters seem to be able to spread out and they take home lots of birds.”

Calling expert and manufacturer David Hale of Knight and Hale Game Calls shot this tom in Marathon County. Photo by Greg Keefer.

The Eastern turkey is alive and well in Wisconsin and spring gobbler hunting may be better than ever.

“The turkey population is doing well,” said Tami Ryan, a wildlife biologist with the DNR’s Southeast Region.

“Over the last decade we’ve had record turkey harvests every year and every spring we have more permits available than we’ve had previously. Hunting hours have even been extended from noon until 20 minutes after sunset to let more hunters get in on the action.”

The expanded opportunities are the result of a growing turkey population that can handle the harvest rates, Ryan said.

And it’s only getting better.

“We’re doing a lot of turkey management in the state these days and turkeys are very important,” Ryan said. “The turkey stamp sales revenue goes into a special account that can only be used for turkey management projects. We also look for additional sources of funding and cooperate with the National Wild Turkey Federation in that. The DNR does timber stand improvement, oak stand regeneration and natural prairie restoration to create better turkey habitat.”

In addition to great turkey hunting on state-owned property, more than 2.3 million acres of county forest are also open to the public. These extensive forests are excellent places to call spring gobblers, are sometimes lesser known and can have less hunting pressure.

Here’s a look at only a few of the turkey-hunting opportunities you’ll have this spring.

Lower Wisconsin State Riverway
“We have more than 40,000 acres of land open to public hunting along the lower Wisconsin River with success rates for spring gobblers traditionally being very good,” wildlife supervisor Bill Ishmael said. “The Lower Wisconsin State Waterway spans across turkey zones 3, 4 and 5, though there isn’t a lot of the public land in Zone 3.”

Habitat is ideal and varied, Ishmael said. There’s plenty of wooded habitat on a floodplain and upland forests with plenty of openings in the overhead canopy, white oak patches, native prairie and farm fields that border the public area, all of which hold turkeys at one time or another. Huge tracts of land result in relatively uninterrupted hunting opportunities with many open fields for the turkeys to strut, display and feed.

“I hunt in Sauk County and I generally do very well,” Ishmael said.

The riverway includes Iowa, Sauk, Dane, Grant, Richland and Crawford counties with the most productive sections of forest in Iowa, Sauk and Richland counties.

Good areas of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway are the 3,736-acre Avoca Unit off Highway 133 in Iowa County, the 5,697-acre Kickapoo River WA in Crawford County, a half-mile north of Wauzeka on Highway 131, and the 2,345-acre Pine River Public Hunting Grounds in Richland County near Gotham on Highway 14. That’s only the start of the list.

For more information, contact the DNR’s Southcentral Region office at (608) 275-3266.