Michigan's Best Spring Turkey Counties: Saginaw in 2024, Allegan Over Time

Saginaw County had the highest estimated spring turkey harvest in Michigan in 2024, 1,297 birds, but Allegan County has taken first place in 8 of the 23 seasons that have county estimates. Michigan does not count turkeys at a check station. The state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) surveys license buyers and scales their answers up, so every county figure carries a margin, and the margins are larger than the gap between first place and fifteenth. Statewide, the summed 2024 estimate of 37,339 is about 10% above 2023 and 4,661 below the 2008 peak.

The DNR's hunter survey puts Saginaw County first for spring 2024, at an estimated 1,297 turkeys, with Allegan County second at 1,245. Ottawa (1,166), Montcalm (1,103) and Kent (1,090) follow. Fifteen counties appear below beside their 2022 estimates and their 2019 to 2022 averages, which cover the four earlier seasons that have county figures.

Saginaw's 1,297 is 402 above its own average of 895, a big spring by its own standards. Van Buren County (951 against 587), Hillsdale (873 against 578) and Ingham (823 against 562) also ran well above theirs, and Tuscola went the other way, from 1,111 in 2022 to 866. Across the state, 55 of 83 counties rose from 2022 to 2024 and 28 fell. The ten leading counties hold 28.7% of the statewide estimate.

The DNR prints a 95% margin beside every county estimate, and in the top 15 those margins run from 248 to 336 birds. Saginaw's 1,297 comes with 336, which puts it between 961 and 1,633. Allegan's 1,245 comes with 319 and runs from 926 to 1,564. The DNR treats two estimates as different only when their intervals do not overlap, and by that rule Saginaw and Allegan are tied. So are Saginaw and 15th-place Shiawassee, whose 769 carries a margin of 260 and reaches 1,029, above Saginaw's floor of 961.

The report also shows what sits behind the two leaders. Allegan had the most hunters afield of any county, an estimated 2,816, and the most days, 9,856. Saginaw had 2,135 hunters and 8,225 days, and its hunter success was 61% against Allegan's 44%. A bigger crowd in one county and a better success rate in the other end up within 52 birds of each other.

A single survey year makes a weak ranking, so we also count first places. Michigan has county estimates for 23 seasons between 2001 and 2024, and seven different counties have led at least once. Allegan has 8 of those 23, Montcalm 6, Kent 4, Newaygo 2, and Lapeer, Tuscola and Saginaw 1 each.

In the nine seasons of the 2015 to 2024 window, Allegan's estimated total of 10,284 is 1,501 above second-place Tuscola (8,783), and it finished first five times. Kent is third on that total (8,621) without a first place in the window, so a county can sit near the top for years while rarely leading. Allegan also drew the most hunters in 2024, so its record may reflect effort as much as flock size. The survey cannot separate the two.

Michigan's statewide estimate peaked at 42,000 in 2008, reached 41,770 in 2020 and bottomed at 29,107 in 2014. The 2024 total of 37,339 sits 4,661 below the peak. The DNR published regional totals and no county table for 2023, so the chart uses the regional sum for that year, 33,925, and the two years compare by subtraction: 37,339 minus 33,925 is 3,414, and 3,414 divided by 33,925 is 10.1%. The DNR's own report calls it a 10% increase, from 33,925 to 37,341. Against 2022, the last season with county rows before 2024, the gain is 15.0% (37,339 against 32,463).

The report says 78,097 hunters went afield in 2024, up from 74,244, while days afield fell 7.5%, from 327,826 to 303,354. The DNR reads that pattern as better conditions or better efficiency, and a survey of what hunters say they did cannot test the idea.

After the season the DNR emails an online questionnaire to license buyers, mails a paper form to a random sample of those who did not answer, and builds estimates for all 98,946 license buyers from the replies. In 2024, 5,190 mailed forms came back, a 35% adjusted response rate. The report warns that avid hunters may be more likely to reply and that its estimates were not adjusted for that. Small numbers fare worst: Alger County's estimate is 80 birds with a margin of 106, and Ontonagon County's is 141 with a margin of 133.

Our 2024 county figures match Table 6 of the DNR's report. Our summed statewide figure is 37,339, two below the DNR's rounded 37,341, and the report's text gives 42,002 for 2008 and 41,772 for 2020, each two above our 42,000 and 41,770. Estimates for a county rise with hunter numbers and county size, and neither is adjusted here.

Read the 2024 table as a tier of about fifteen counties and not as a ranking. Eight of the ten leaders in 2024 also sit in the 2015 to 2024 top ten: Saginaw, Allegan, Ottawa, Montcalm, Kent, Lapeer, Newaygo and Jackson. St. Clair and Van Buren made the 2024 list only, and Tuscola and Sanilac are on the ten-season list alone. When two counties differ by less than either margin, call them tied and choose between them on access.

Access decides the next step. By the DNR's estimate, 90% of the 2024 harvest came from private land, so after you pick a tier the useful question is whose ground you can reach. Michigan's deer numbers come from a mix of registration and survey too, and our paper on Michigan's reporting gap compares the two.