Fast launch, real impact:
Mississippi modernizes turkey season
When a new turkey hunting law arrived on a tight timeline, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks launched a new permit stamp and a digital game check on the PayIt Outdoors platform — operational in time for opening weekend.
A new law, a short timeline.
When Mississippi passed a new turkey hunting regulation in spring 2025, MDWFP had to move quickly. The regulation required a new turkey permit stamp that hunters would purchase before the season — allowing up to three birds under a single stamp, with a mandatory game check required to validate each individual harvest.
The new functionality had to be operational before permits went on sale in January 2026, ahead of the opening weekend in March.
A head start that paid off
MDWFP wasn’t starting from scratch. Since launching a new electronic licensing system with PayIt in February 2025 — enabling hunters and anglers to purchase licenses and boat owners to register and renew vessels in a modern, digital experience — the department had a foundation in place that paved the way for what came next.
From new law to opening weekend
Licensing goes digital
MDWFP launches a new electronic licensing system on the PayIt Outdoors platform.
A new regulation
Mississippi passes the turkey hunting regulation requiring a new permit stamp and game check.
Stamp goes on sale
The turkey stamp and its digital game check workflow are live and selling to hunters.
Opening weekend
Spring turkey season opens with the new permit and mobile game check in hunters’ hands.
Delivering what hunters needed in the field.
Working together, MDWFP and PayIt configured two new products on the existing PayIt Outdoors platform: the turkey stamp and a digital game check workflow tied directly to it.
After harvesting a turkey, hunters complete their check through the mobile app in just a few taps — whether they’re online or offline. The process was designed to be fast enough that compliance wouldn’t feel like a burden.
The turkey stamp
A new permit hunters purchase before the season, allowing up to three birds under a single stamp. Built and configured on the platform MDWFP already used for licenses and boat registrations — no new system for staff or hunters to learn.
Digital game check
A check workflow tied directly to the stamp, validating each of the three harvests individually. Completed in a few taps in the mobile app — and designed to work whether or not a hunter has a signal deep in the woods.
Works without a signal
Game checks complete online or offline, so a hunter can validate a harvest in the moment — deep in a Wildlife Management Area with no cell service — and the check syncs when they reconnect. Fast enough that compliance never feels like a chore.
Hunters responded.
When the 2026 spring turkey season opened, hunters adopted the digital channel immediately — and that participation has real downstream value for how MDWFP manages the resource.
of game checks came in through the mobile app
In the program’s very first spring season, nine in ten harvests were validated digitally — giving MDWFP faster, more accurate data on hunter numbers and birds harvested than paper-based reporting ever could.
Increased game check participation allows MDWFP to get more accurate counts of both hunter numbers and turkeys harvested. You need both numbers to get a more complete picture of a season’s harvest. Having quick access to better data allows MDWFP to more efficiently monitor hunter numbers and manage turkey populations to ensure that hunters continue to have quality turkey hunting experiences far into the future.
Conservation with momentum.
Every turkey stamp sold directly supports wild turkey conservation in Mississippi, with proceeds funding habitat restoration and protection, scientific research, and expanded access to public hunting opportunities. As more hunters complete game checks, MDWFP gains more accurate harvest data to better manage turkey populations and guide these conservation efforts.
already directed toward habitat enhancement projects through funds raised by the new permit.
acres of public land protected across Wildlife Management Areas statewide.
With the turkey stamp program running at scale, MDWFP has both the data and the funding to achieve its conservation goals. For Blount, that’s part of a longer story.
Wild turkey in Mississippi are already a success story, recovering from dangerously low populations due to over-exploitation. Conservation funded by hunters through hunting license sales played a major role in bringing the wild turkey back. Now, with dedicated perpetual funding through the Wild Turkey Stamp, hunters are directly contributing to wild turkey conservation in the state — and helping ensure we have healthy wild turkey populations for generations to come.
