Brothers do their part for record harvest in Illinois’ spring youth turkey seasons

The Teri brothers contributed a pair of turkeys to Illinois’ record youth spring turkey seasons. In Stephenson County, Luke (left), 17, bagged a turkey with an 11-inch bear and 1 1/4-inch spurs and Joe, 14, shot a tom with a 10-inch beard and 3/4-inch spurs. Both used 12-gauge shotguns, their father Matt emailed.

Illinois youth hunters harvested a preliminary record total of 2,091 turkeys during the youth seasons March 29-30 and April 5-6, topping the previous record of 2,010 last spring. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources issued 6,573 youth turkey permits, meaning youth hunters nearly went 1-for-3.

Click here for the full breakdown of the record youth seasons from the IDNR.

TOTW, the celebration of hunting wild turkeys in Illinois and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows), runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times as warranted.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), X (@BowmanOutside), Instagram (@BowmanOutside) or Bluesky (@BowmanOutside.bsky.social).

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