I got a pair of California gobblers eventually. The biggest came on a hunt with my pal Tom Stone, a retired senior biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game. Our hunt took place on a small parcel of private woodland in Mendocino County that's been in Stone's family since the late 1800s.

There weren't any wild turkeys in California back then -- but there sure are now, and we both got longbeard toms at the same time, despite periodic rain showers. Hurrah!

Before getting into the hunting forecast for this coming season, let's look at some of the factors that affect turkey production from year to year.

Of course, habitat is the most important part of the equation. Without a place to live, the turkeys would not have succeeded here to begin with. Happily, the Golden State has millions of acres of oak-belt foothills where turkeys now fill a previously unoccupied niche.

So the birds are here to stay. But though it's hard to tell at times, their numbers do fluctuate up or down depending on a variety of circumstances. For example, weather conditions play a big part in the timing of the breeding cycle. Too much warm weather early on can upset the annual nesting routine -- at least for some of the hens.

Later, too much cold, wet weather can do the same thing. Hens that start nesting too early risk having their nests flooded out. The young that do hatch during inclement weather may succumb if they're exposed to the elements. That's important because hens that lose their poults will not nest again that season. However, hens that lose their unhatched eggs will keep trying until they succeed.

Two past management decisions are now affecting the turkey population in the Golden State:

After special-interest groups threatened the DFG with a lawsuit, all transplants were halted in 1999. That means no more turkeys imported from other states. Consequently, only a few Merriam's turkeys, slated to be planted at higher elevations, were introduced before the ban took place.

The original idea, of course, was to put more turkeys in places where -- if they took hold -- anyone could hunt them.

According to Tom Blankinship, supervisor of the DFG's upland game program, the good news is the official wild turkey management plan includes the option of trapping nuisance turkeys and moving them to areas open to public hunting. The caveat is that wherever nuisance birds are released, wild turkeys must already exist so that no new areas are populated with the birds. With any luck, a few turkeys will already have been moved on an experimental basis by the time you read this.

Before 1998, the fall season was 30 days long and the bag limit was one turkey of either sex per day! Concerned about the number of hens taken in the fall, the DFG cut the fall season back to 16 days and set the limit at one turkey of either sex per season.