LINCOLN - To a hunter, spring means one thing: Spring Thunder. Also known as, the beginning of the spring turkey season.

The Cornhusker state is marketed as one of the best states in the nation to hunt Wild Turkey. Luke Meduna, Nebraska Game and Parks' Big Game Program Manager, explained why that is.

“There’s just a lot of opportunities to hunt turkeys within the state,” Meduna said. “Access to getting on private land for turkeys has generally been pretty easy, much more so than deer, so that's part of it....But when we planted turkeys here, they did really well, and much of Nebraska is just really good turkey habitat.”

When a place is hyped up to be one of the best at anything, people are likely to come see for themselves, as has been the case with Wild Turkey hunters to Nebraska. Meduna says, annually, nonresident hunters generate a $1.0 million-$1.5 million in revenue each year. This is thanks to those non-Nebraska hunters coming in large numbers.

“Historically, it’s been about 9,000 nonresident hunters, but the past year it was a bit more, around 12,000.”

Meduna’s advice for turkey hunters of all experience levels is to take time locating where birds are ahead of your hunt.

“There’s nothing worse than getting to a place early morning, hoping there’s birds, to not hear anything,” Meduna said. “If you can do some homework the night before, putting birds to roost, figuring out where to start in the morning is a nice way to start.”

Meduna is optimistic about this years harvest numbers. While being down from the historic levels the state saw 8-10 years ago, they aren’t greatly different.

“We’ve had pretty good nesting conditions the last few years,” Meduna said. “The reports we’ve been doing have been good, they’ve been comparable to historic numbers.”

The spring Wild Turkey season begins March 25th, with archery lasting through the end of may, shotgun begins mid-April, also lasting through May.