Louisiana’s 2025 Turkey Season: 2nd Highest Harvest Ever
I'll remember that day in Dixie Inn, Louisiana for the rest of my life!
It was in the early 1990's. I was headed east on I-20 and the minute I got to Exit 44, the Dixie Inn Exit, I saw it right there beside the interstate. It was a real life wild turkey.
I had never seen one in the State of Louisiana before then, but there was no denying that this guy was the real deal.
At that time I had no idea that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries had been restocking wild turkeys in the state for decades. I just never saw the fruits of their labor until that beautiful Fall morning.
According to LDWF, in 1962, they began trapping and releasing wild turkeys into suitable habitat to restore the population. Since then, LDWF has released more than 3,900 turkeys in 45 parishes.
Those efforts from LDWF are obviously paying huge dividends in present day. It's common for me to see as many as 30 turkeys every time I sit in my deer stand in Arcadia, Louisiana.
To prove the point of their success, LDWF just released the numbers from the 2025 Spring Turkey Season and Louisiana turkey hunters enjoyed another incredibly banner season, harvesting 3,576 birds.
That's the second-highest reported total since harvest reporting began in 2009. The number one slot was 2024's 3,695 harvest count.
Speaking with Louisiana Radio Network, LDWF Small Game and Wild Turkey Program Manager Cody Cedotal stated that the past four years have seen the highest reported harvests. “We made a little bit of a season adjustment in 2018 to try to help some areas out, and we feel like that’s helped the last four years as our harvest numbers have jumped up pretty good.”
That adjustment was the decision to delay each year's start date for the hunting season and according to Cedotal, that's been key to supporting turkey population growth. Adult male harvest in 2025 exceeded 2024 by 204.
Cedotal also provided the dates for the Spring 2026 Louisiana Turkey Season which he says will begin on Good Friday, April 3 and will run through May 3.