(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s turkey hunting season opens this weekend and it’s estimated up to 35-thousand hunters will participate this year. Nate Carr, an Iowa D-N-R conservation officer for Hardin and Hamilton counties, says the agency’s surveys are showing a healthy population of wild turkeys. “It’s looking like a fairly promising year,” Carr says. “We’ve had three straight years of good hatches, pretty good spring weather, so that’s led to stronger numbers. I think we’re looking at comparable harvests to last year, hopefully, a little bit of an uptick is always good to see.”

The first turkey season runs today (Friday) through Sunday and is for Iowa youth only. The first of the four regular seasons opens Monday and they’ll run through May 12th. “Some things hunters want to make sure they’ve got in their pocket before they go, there’s of course their hunting license, and habitat fee,” Carr says. “So, hunting license if you’re 16 and older is required, habitat for you if you’re ages 16 to 64, and then a valid tag for the season that you’re hunting.”

Carr reminds you, there is a bag limit. “Each hunter can get up to two tags with at least one being for season four,” Carr says. “Shooting hours for turkey is a half hour before sunrise to sunset, so traditionally, hunters get out there well before sunrise to get in with the turkeys before they start gobbling.”

There was a free-for-all on Iowa turkeys in the early 1900s, and between hunting and drastic reductions in habitat, the big birds eventually disappeared from Iowa’s woodlands and forests. Wild turkeys were reintroduced in 1966 and have since expanded their numbers across the entire state. Learn more at www.iowadnr.gov.