First Youth Season Shows Decrease in Turkey Season

While Capitol Outdoors and countless other high school anglers were being knocked around by high winds on Saturday, the woods and fields had youth striving for that elusive turkey.  Below you'll see the numbers for the 2018 first youth turkey season and as you can see there was a decrease which we believe had a lot to do with the weather.

The calendar says Spring, but Winter holds on for First Youth Turkey Season

From the Illinois DNR Division of Wildlife Resources:

Youth hunters in Illinois harvested a preliminary total of 664 turkeys during the opening weekend of the 2018 Youth Spring Turkey Season (March 31-April 1), compared to 776 during the first weekend in 2017.

The second weekend of the youth turkey season is April 7-8. For more information on turkey hunting in Illinois, go online at https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/hunting/Pages/TurkeyHunting.aspx
First weekend county results for the youth turkey season are below:

County	2017	2018
Adams	13	24
Alexander	5	8
Bond	12	3
Boone	2	2
Brown	14	10
Bureau	3	8
Calhoun	9	8
Carroll	2	6
Cass	8	8
Champaign	2	1
Christian	0	2
Clark	6	6
Clay	14	9
Clinton	6	9
Coles	4	1
Crawford	10	11
Cumberland	4	4
DeWitt	4	3
Edgar	3	3
Edwards	6	6
Effingham	9	8
Fayette	26	20
Franklin	9	4
Fulton	22	11
Gallatin	8	9
Greene	7	7
Grundy	4	1
Hamilton	17	10
Hancock	5	21
Hardin	5	6
Henderson	8	4
Henry	1	6
Iroquois	2	5
Jackson	25	14
Jasper	7	2
Jefferson	30	19
Jersey	10	7
JoDaviess	11	15
Johnson	15	5
Kankakee	0	1
Kendall	1	0
Knox	16	9
LaSalle	3	4
Lawrence	8	5
Lee	6	4
Livingston	0	3
Logan	6	1
Macon	3	0
Macoupin	15	18
Madison	7	7
Marion	19	15
Marshall	0	2
Mason	8	7
Massac	9	2
McDonough	6	2
McHenry	3	6
McLean	3	1
Menard	4	3
Mercer	9	16
Monroe	7	7
Montgomery	13	10
Morgan	10	5
Moultrie	1	0
Ogle	4	9
Peoria	1	1
Perry	17	18
Pike	18	16
Pope	7	0
Pulaski	3	7
Putnam	1	1
Randolph	26	23
Richland	4	0
Rock Island	6	7
Saline	15	2
Sangamon	4	4
Schuyler	15	10
Scott	2	3
Shelby	5	6
St. Clair	6	13
Stephenson	4	9
Tazewell	5	3
Union	31	15
Vermilion	1	3
Wabash	5	0
Warren	4	1
Washington	15	11
Wayne	17	16
White	17	9
Whiteside	6	3
Will	2	3
Williamson	25	10
Winnebago	1	6
Woodford	4	1
Total	776	644