Turkeys are plentiful throughout their range in Kansas, and hunting success proves it. The author and his good friend Eric Johnson took these two Eastern gobblers on the same morning. Photo by Marc Murrell.

Turkey hunters in the Sunflower State have had it good for many years now. Bird numbers have been improving in many parts of the state and the success rate has been impressive. And considering spring hunters can take two bearded birds, there are plenty of opportunities to take to the fields and experience plenty of action. The 2009 season promises to be another good one in most regions of Kansas, although there are some areas that haven't seen good production in recent years. Regardless, the chances to kill a Kansas turkey this spring are still good if you do your homework and know where to look.

Jim Pitman, small-game coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, says that as a whole, the state's turkey population has kind of leveled off over the last three or four years, "but it's still really high."

"But there's a lot of variability across the state as the southeast and the northeast have been on a bit of a decline due to several years in a row of poor production," he added.

Most of the variability that Pitman referred to is a result of Mother Nature not necessarily cooperating.

"Three of the last four years have been extremely wet in the eastern third of the state, and the rains have come in June, which is the prime period for nesting and raising poults," he said. "Rain and flooding are detrimental to turkeys."

There are two subspecies of turkeys in Kansas, according to Pitman, and each is found in geographically different types of habitat. A genetic study done several years ago compared samples from Kansas birds to known subspecies from other states.

"We've got two pretty distinct populations in the Rio Grande west of the Flint Hills, and the Eastern subspecies are east of there," Pitman said. "And then we've got a huge area in the Flint Hills from north to south that is hybrids of the two."

Kansas turkey populations flourished during the middle of the last century after extensive trapping and transplanting efforts by the KDWP. Those efforts have been just about abandoned now, as most suitable turkey habitat in the state has birds. The only exception is for areas considered by some to have too many birds.

"We're moving some nuisance birds from the Hutchinson area near the airport and town and taking them places," said Pitman, "but we're not specifically catching birds for restocking."

Kansas' turkey hunters killed 35,040 birds in the spring of 2008, which was a record high. However, past years' harvests were in that ballpark and have remained stable over the last four or five years.

"There have been some regional variations and we saw some huge declines in the southeast last spring and some big increases in the north-central part of the state," Pitman said.

The statewide turkey success rate remains around 60 percent where it's hovered for quite some time. The number of hunters chasing turkeys each year has stayed in the neighborhood of 42,000. One thing Pitman found interesting when looking at his data was that 72,000 different people buy turkey permits in Kansas, which seemed odd to him.