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How to hunt wild turkey in Virginia
Last updated 2026-09-24 · from VDWR data · 2026–27 licence year
Wild turkey in Virginia is hunted in mature hardwoods that carry mast. Locate first and call second. Fall hunting is often a matter of finding a flock, scattering it and calling it back together; spring hunting is working a gobbler off the roost from a set-up he can walk to without crossing anything. Virginia's 2026–27 wild turkey season runs October 3, 2026 to January 23, 2027, on dates that depend on the zone.
The cover
Mature hardwoods that carry mast — oak ridges and beech — against open ground: pasture, food plot, log landing or field edge where birds strut and feed. Roost trees are usually the biggest timber near water.
How it is hunted
Locate first and call second. Fall hunting is often a matter of finding a flock, scattering it and calling it back together; spring hunting is working a gobbler off the roost from a set-up he can walk to without crossing anything.
Dogs
Dogs are legal for fall turkey in some states and not in others, and the rule is the state's rather than a preference — the regulations page for each state carries it.
This app does not carry an equipment and methods table for Virginia — gauge, choke, shot, capacity and the dog rules. Michigan's is shipped and no other state's is, and printing Michigan's under another agency's name would be a citation error rather than a rounding one. See VDWR.
The cover, tactics and dog notes above are written for this app — not an agency description and not a regulation. Everything that is a rule carries the page it was read from.
The other questions
- When does Virginia's 2026–27 wild turkey season open?
- Where to hunt wild turkey in Virginia
- Virginia wild turkey regulations, 2026–27
- Virginia wild turkey hunting report
- Wild turkey hunting in Virginia — the whole picture
- Wild turkey — biology, range and how it is hunted