Healthy flocks of turkeys have been reported around the state. Barring wild weather, this spring turkey season, which opens March 31, should be a good one. Photo by John Higley.

I remember my daydreams about opening day for turkey last year. I imagined the last Saturday in March would dawn bright, with just a hint of dew on the meadows, and the air still. Certainly the gobbles would ring throughout the hills of northern California as the tom turkeys announced their presence to the hens. With high expectations, I would rise early, drive the necessary distance and hike one mile before the first rays of sunlight touched the distant eastern ridgeline. Once settled in my favorite spot, I'd wait patiently.

When the nearby roosting toms flew down, I'd call one into shotgun range and be home for lunch.

Well, it didn't happen that way in reality! At 4 a.m. on opening day, I awoke to the sound of steady rainfall on the metal roof of my house. I looked outside, felt the chilly wind from the south, and decided to go back to bed. Waterfowl hunting is one thing, turkey hunting quite another. Oh, and later that morning, 2 inches of hail covered the property I'd intended to hunt. For once, it seems, I made the right decision.

I'd like to say that the storm quickly moved on, allowing me to find a willing gobbler the very next day. But that would be misleading.

The inclement weather did subside somewhat, but only temporarily. And with the barometric pressure wavering, the turkeys were largely silent and inactive. A good friend, who hunted hard on property his family owns, reported hearing no turkey sounds at all where he'd seen a flock of toms a week before.

Unsettled weather is always a big part of spring turkey hunting. It's the transition time of year that separates winter from summer. However, in recent times, the weather gods can't seem to decide when spring really begins. For kicks, let's open my journal to February and see just what was going on in early 2006.

Talk about indecision! Early on there was splendid weather, with record-breaking temperatures as high as 80 degrees. Then on the 17th of the month, the weather pattern downshifted to clouds, wind and spitting rain. On the 18th, it turned to snow!

The following Sunday, it was a cold 28 degrees -- but sunny, and tom turkeys were sounding off all around the valley where I live.

Were the birds in low areas already in their breeding mode? I don't know, but they were certainly active, and most likely a tad confused.

Incredibly, the last week of the month was again quite warm. The neighborhood peach trees were already in bloom, and the roses were popping. I even saw one nearby black oak tree that was leafing out before the first of March -- a month and a half early.

According to my journal, it rained 23 days straight in March, and at least some rain fell the first 10 days in April. And rain continued to fall periodically for the next couple of weeks.

If all this sounds like an overabundance of rain, in some places it certainly was. However, the late storms didn't blanket the entire state at once. So, while every turkey hunter faced his or her share of adversity, there were days scattered here and there in California when hunting was about as good as it gets.