NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee turkey hunters head into the fall season this weekend under the same rule that wildlife managers credit with helping the state’s flock recover: hens are off-limits.
The statewide fall shotgun and archery season runs Oct. 17-30. Archery-only hunting for fall turkeys is already underway and runs through Oct. 30, with a second archery segment Nov. 2-6.
The bag limit is one male turkey for the entire fall season, and bearded hens are not allowed. Any turkey taken during the fall counts toward that single-bird statewide limit, and a hunter may not carry archery equipment and a shotgun or rifle at the same time during the fall season.
Not every county is open. Fall turkey hunting is closed in Crockett, Dyer, Giles, Haywood, Lake, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Lincoln, Shelby, Tipton and Wayne counties.
This is the sixth year hens have been protected in the fall. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency put fall hens off-limits in 2021 after years of declining turkey numbers. Hens had always been protected in the spring. During the boom years, the agency had allowed hens in the fall limit, as many as six birds in most counties.
The change appears to have worked. This spring’s season produced the fourth-highest harvest on record, with 34,990 gobblers taken. Biologists also point to poor hatches in bad-weather years and more predators raiding nests and taking young birds as factors in the earlier decline, but more hens in the spring means more eggs and more turkeys down the road.
Spring hunters can mark their calendars too. The 2027 young sportsman spring hunt is March 27-28, and the general spring season runs April 3 to May 16, with no hens of any kind legal to harvest.
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