Tagging, Reporting, & Processing Your Turkey

Close-up of brownish turkey feathers, with tints of blue and orange.

Tagging, Reporting, & Processing Turkey

After you take your shot, there are several steps you must take immediately to ensure your harvest is legal, once you have confirmed the turkey is dead. These include notching your tag, tagging your turkey, reporting your harvest, and removing your bird from the field. Step 5 includes a video showing how to remove the breast and legs when you’re ready to process your bird.

Step 1: Make Sure the Turkey is Dead

Even with a good shot, it may take a few seconds for a turkey to die. You do not want the bird to run or fly away. Pay attention to how the turkey reacts after the shot to determine if you had a clean hit, a clean miss, or if you wounded the bird, and proceed from there.

Step 2: Notch Your Tag, Tag Your Turkey, then Take Photos

Tagging Your Turkey

Once you are sure the turkey is dead, take a breath, notch your permit (cut it), and make sure you sign it.

A turkey leg tag showing where to cut a notch with scissors: in the black box with the text "notch here immediately upon harvest" next to it.

Then attach the permit to the turkey’s leg.

Two turkey legs and feet, one with a white tag wrapped around it and secured with a zip-tie.

It is unlawful to leave or transport a wild turkey without immediately attaching the leg tag securely around the leg as instructed. The tag must remain attached until the turkey is at your legal residence and has been checked in (Step 3). See Digest for details.

Tip: Sign your turkey permit as soon as you receive it — one less step to remember in the field.

Take Photos

Once the tag is attached, you can take photos of your harvest. Ethical photos matter — both to show respect to the animal and to maintain a positive public perception of hunting.

Capture photos that narrate the hunt’s story and share the experience, instead of glorifying the kill.

Our photos of harvested game are a display of hunting ethics and, in this case, folks are watching more than ever when we post images on social media. Being a responsible and ethical hunter is of such critical importance that an entire chapter is devoted to it in hunter safety education courses where we are taught as new hunters not to share graphic photos, vividly describe the kill to non-hunters, or parade around town with a deer strapped to a vehicle. Nationally, about 5 percent of the population hunts and roughly the same percentage actively opposes hunting. The rest of the population is predominately neutral. Hunters need to work to maintain a good relationship with the non-hunting public. We should not provoke more people to become anti-hunters and create more challenges for the rest of us to protect hunting as a tradition and critically important instrument of conservation. Hunting annually provides millions of dollars to fund wildlife conservation through the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act. We have a lot to lose!

Nathan Grider

Ethical Photographs of Your Harvest; It’s Worth the Time (2022), OutdoorIllinois

Show Respect for the Turkey

Keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction
Do not use the animal as a gun or bow rest
Take photos before field dressing
Turn wounds away from the camera
Arrange the turkey in a natural position
Remove visible blood, leaves, or dirt from the scene
Sit or kneel next to the turkey, not on it
Wear blaze orange if required by law
Don’t take photos of untagged animals

Narrate the Hunt’s Story

Include the habitat or scenery
Photograph scouting moments, companions, or interesting finds
Focus on the overall experience, not only the harvest

Step 3: Report Your Harvest

After tagging your turkey, you must check it in by 10 p.m. on the same calendar day of harvest:

by calling 1-866-452-4325
online (IDNR reporting system)

It is unlawful to field dress or butcher a turkey before it has been checked in. See the Digest for details.

Step 4: Remove Your Turkey From the Field

Most hunters keep the carcass intact (guts included) until arriving home, unless they have a long trip or cannot process the bird soon.

If you choose to gut your bird in the field, we recommend this tutorial from MeatEater’s YouTube channel or this tutorial from Outdoor Channel’s YouTube channel, which explains how to pluck and remove beards and tail fans for mounts.

If you are carrying the turkey out intact, we highly recommend wearing blaze orange and draping blaze orange on the turkey to prevent other hunters from mistaking you for a turkey.

If you plan to process your turkey in the field, proceed to step 5, but keep the leg tag attached until the turkey is home, and be sure to remove the carcass and properly dispose of it (you cannot leave it on IDNR public land).

Step 5: Process Your Turkey

Do not begin field dressing, butchering, or processing until the turkey has been checked in (step 3).

If you want to learn how to remove the beard and tail fan for mounting or how to pluck your bird, use the instructional video from step 4.