It was opening day of spring turkey season 2004, the last Saturday in March, and something was amiss. It was spitting rain, but not enough to get you really wet, and the air was cool but not cold. I’ve seen opening days that were warmer and sunnier, but I’ve also been out in the teeth of a full-fledged storm. Regardless, on the familiar property where I was hunting, there had always been turkeys and even on slow days the toms were almost always vocal enough to keep me interested regardless of whether an old longbeard came to the gun.

At daybreak of the season opener last spring, however, despite the air being filled with the sounds of small birds, quail and distant dogs barking, the morning was completely void of the sounds I wanted most to hear. If early morning turkey vocalization means anything in the spring, and it certainly does, there wasn’t a gobbler anywhere within hearing. I hunted hard all morning, but the only indication that there might be a few turkeys present was one lone set of tracks in a mud puddle.

A week later I did find a few birds in another spot, but all in all it was one of the slowest seasons I can remember. Some of the local hunters I talked to remarked about the absence of jakes (1-year-old gobblers) and the short supply of older toms. What’s more, the symptoms of a here-and-there decline were apparent in several parts of northern California.

Here’s what I think happened. In spring 2003, turkey hunting in some parts of the north state was very difficult. I found a few birds in Shasta County, but as was the case again in 2004, young toms were few and far between. The situation in 2003 developed because of a poor production year in 2002, which I didn’t recognize immediately. Instead, I blamed the apparent lack of turkey activity in 2003 on a prolonged spell of warm weather in March of that year.

My feeling then was that there were still lots of turkeys around, but they were already in their mid-breeding season mode on opening day and most of the subordinate toms were just going about their business quietly. Complicating matters for hunting, the unseasonably warm weather ended after opening weekend, replaced with major storms every few days until the middle of May.

I encountered the same difficult conditions while hunting in Napa County with custom turkey call maker Bruce Wurth. In 2002, we had phenomenal luck on the ranch where he hunts, but overall birds were scarce in 2003. Once again, we blamed it all on the unusual weather. It was a logical theory, but we were wrong. Since the 2004 season wasn’t much better for Bruce than it was for me, we finally came to the conclusion that an overall shortage of birds was the real culprit.

As we’ve seen, late winter 2003 was unusually warm. Many of the turkeys apparently bred early, and it seems logical that some hens started nesting weeks before normal. Then a prolonged period of stormy weather arrived, and it’s likely that many of the year’s young died. Even allowing for second nesting attempts, I now believe that production throughout northern California was below average. And that, along with more unusual weather, could explain the poor success many hunters had hereabouts last spring.

Consider: From March 7 to March 18, 2004, the high temperature in this neck of the woods varied from 80 to 88 degrees. According to a local newspaper, daytime high records were broken in dozens of places in the state during that time. Oak trees in the foothills leafed out three weeks early, and I actually saw newly hatched young turkey poults on the ground on April 29. A hen would have to had been incubating her eggs by April 1 to accomplish that.

Okay, here’s my theory, condensed: Poor production in 2002 and 2003 resulted in fewer gobblers in the woods last spring, and early breeding activity contributed to the silence of many of them. If there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s that the rest of spring 2004, despite a couple of mild storms, was just about perfect for turkey production. That should mean an increase in turkey numbers going into the 2005 spring turkey season.

Here’s an overview of issues facing the statewide turkey population, as explained by Sacramento-based Scott Gardner, upland game biologist for the Department of Fish and Game. As most turkey hunters know, nearly all transplanting of wild turkeys came to an end when the DFG was threatened with legal action in 1999. However, even now the department is looking for ways to start the program moving forward once again. So far, one small operation, financed by the National Wild Turkey Federation, was approved and completed last year.

The DFG’s hope is to move nuisance birds from their present locations and release them in other areas where turkeys are already. Even though there won’t be any expansion of turkey range in the state, the relocated birds will offer additional hunting opportunity simply because they’re there. For example, the birds moved by the NWTF, in cooperation with the DFG (numbering less than 100), were freed on the Cache Creek and Spenceville wildlife areas where anyone can hunt. Hunters subsequently took about 30 percent of the toms during the spring season.