For most folks, spring turkey hunting is about calling in birds and shooting them at close range with a scattergun. But not everyone hunts gobblers that way, and in Wyoming, and some other states, particularly in the West, it’s currently legal to use rifles to take turkeys in both the spring and fall seasons. In fact, Wyoming Game and Fish’s Janet Milek told Cowboy State Daily that 12 percent of the state’s spring turkey harvest is done with rifles.
That’s likely to change soon, however; Wyoming officials are proposing to ban rifle hunting for spring turkeys on public land in 2027, while maintaining the unusual opportunity on private lands and everywhere during the fall season.
According to the Wyoming Fish and Game Department, the proposed regulation change is supported by recent public survey data, which “indicates that many hunters are supportive of limiting spring turkey hunting to shotguns, handguns and archery equipment to improve hunter safety.”
The reason the agency declined to extend the regulations to private land is that private hunters typically know if there are other people on the property when they’re out hunting, which reduces the likelihood of accidentally shooting another hunter.
While the agency hasn’t used this rationale to justify the proposed changes, it’s certainly the case that many hunters don’t consider shooting turkeys from long range during the spring mating season to be “fair chase.” This makes sense to us here at Split Reed; why snipe a strutting tom from a hundred yards away when most of the fun comes from calling it in or sneaking up on it?
The proposed regulation changes will likely be officially approved by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission later this week. They won’t go into effect until next year. So, if you’re hellbent on shooting a gobbler with a small-caliber rifle, now’s your chance. Or you can always get access to private property in the Cowboy State during future spring seasons.