The Best Spring Turkey Counties in Kentucky, 2000 to 2026

By reported spring 2026 harvest, Kentucky's best turkey county was Graves, with 778 birds, ahead of Muhlenberg (746), Breckinridge (662), Pulaski (659) and Christian (640). Across all 27 springs in our records, Muhlenberg, Logan and Ohio lead the running totals, and eight of the ten long-run leaders also finished in 2026's top ten. Statewide, 36,448 birds is the highest total in the series, but only by 351 over 2010. These are birds reported, so the ranking reflects hunters and access as well as turkeys, and the department's per-square-mile list puts Pendleton first.

If you searched for the best turkey county in Kentucky, the 2026 answer is Graves County. Its hunters reported 778 birds, which is 32.0% above its 2021 to 2025 average. Muhlenberg, Breckinridge, Pulaski and Christian complete the top five. The department's release says it was Graves's third year in a row on top. The table below runs down to 15th place and shows each county's 2025 total and its five-year average.

The list flattens quickly. First place is 240 birds ahead of tenth (778 against 538), but tenth is only 39 ahead of 15th (499). Past the first few counties, the choice depends more on where you can get access than on the count.

Together the ten leading counties reported 17.5% of the state's 2026 birds. Ten of 120 counties is 8.3%, so the leaders take a bit more than double an even share, and the other 110 counties still account for 82.5% of the harvest. Most of the state's reported turkeys come from counties outside the top ten.

A single spring can flatter a county. To see who stays good, we added each county's reported birds across every spring from 2000 to 2026. The ten largest running totals belong to Muhlenberg, Logan, Ohio, Hardin, Hart, Butler, Grayson, Breckinridge, Pulaski and Hopkins, in that order.

Eight of those ten also sit in the 2026 top ten: Muhlenberg (2nd), Breckinridge (3rd), Pulaski (4th), Hopkins (6th), Ohio (7th), Hardin (8th), Grayson (9th) and Logan (10th). Butler finished 11th with 518 and Hart 15th with 499. Two counties in the 2026 top ten, Graves and Christian, are not on the long-run list.

Graves is the interesting case. It is missing from the 27-year list, yet its 2021 to 2025 average is the highest of the 15 counties in the table, and as noted above it has led three years running. The 2026 lead is more than one lucky spring. We did not test why the long-run list leaves it out.

A raw count does not adjust for county size, so it can favor large counties. The department also ranks counties by birds per square mile, and that list barely overlaps. Pendleton leads at 1.82, followed by Robertson (1.81), Anderson (1.59), Muhlenberg (1.56), Bracken (1.48), Owen (1.41) and Graves (1.4). Only Muhlenberg and Graves are in the top ten of both lists. The release says counties to the south and west took the most birds, while counties in the north and middle of the state took more per square mile. Pendleton (12th in our table, with 512) and Owen (14th, with 500) sit in the top 15 by count and the top ten by density.

Reported harvest climbed from 18,243 in 2000 to 36,097 in 2010, then moved between 26,862 and 35,663 for the next fifteen springs before 2026 brought 36,448.

The margin over 2010 is 351 birds, or 0.97%. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife's own release counts 36,439 and still calls it a record, so the ranking holds, but the lead is thin. Three springs, 2010 (36,097), 2023 (35,663) and 2026 (36,448), sit within 785 birds of each other. We would not read 2026 as a new normal on one year of data. The 2026 total is 18.9% above 2025, though 2025 was the lowest spring since 2022. That rise ranks third among the seven states in our regional comparison.

The counties with the biggest gains are not always the biggest counties. Graves (+188 birds over its average) and Muhlenberg (+180) top the list, but Trigg, Caldwell, Henderson and Harrison all made it with modest totals. Trigg reported 470, which is 155 above its average.

Statewide harvest rose 18.9% on 2025, so part of any county's gain is the state's rise and not something local. Two long-run leaders did not share in it: Logan finished 6.5% below its 2021 to 2025 average and Hart 9.0% below. Harvest alone cannot say whether that means fewer birds, fewer hunters or a poor weekend of weather in those counties.

Each number is birds reported through Telecheck, the state's harvest reporting system, summed by county from Kentucky Fish and Wildlife's harvest data. It reflects hunter effort and access as well as turkeys, and our county totals are not adjusted for county size or public land. The state's release counts 2,373 birds taken on public land, 6.5% of the total, but gives no county split. It also counts 13,670 birds on the general-season opening weekend (April 18 and 19) alone, which shows how closely a count follows when hunters are in the woods.

We checked our county sums against the department's release. Its top-ten list has the same counties in the same order as ours. Eight of the ten county totals match exactly, and two differ by one bird: Christian is 639 in the release against 640 in ours, and Grayson 548 against 549. The statewide gap is nine birds (36,439 against 36,448). We did not chase it.

Start with the eight counties that appear on both lists. They have produced for 27 springs and again in 2026. Among them, Hopkins (+32.9%), Muhlenberg (+31.8%) and Breckinridge (+27.5%) beat their own 2021 to 2025 averages by the widest margins, while Logan trailed its. Use the five-year average to break ties, and treat a county with one big spring and no history as a maybe. If density matters, Muhlenberg (one of the eight) and Graves also rank in the department's top ten per square mile.

Then ask the question the table cannot answer: how much ground can you actually hunt? A county's total says nothing about public acres or how crowded they get. Our Illinois paper on the loneliest public turkey ground ranks tracts by distance from the nearest parking lot, the kind of second filter a county count cannot give you.

If you want a single pick with the fewest ifs, it is Graves County: the most 2026 birds, the highest five-year average in the table and a place in the density top ten. Whether you can get onto ground there is the next question.