Having seen five gobblers before 7:15 a.m. but not sealing the deal with any of them had sent me into an even deeper funk. But that’s when the fates intervened. Unexplainably, one of the gobblers peeled off from his gang of four and the next thing I knew had gobbled directly behind me, just 20 yards away.

I glimpsed him out of the corner of my left eye and quickly ascertained that he was not as impressive a bird as the tom out in front of me. But this satellite gobbler offered something that the longbeard still 65 yards away did not: a shot at a tom that was within range of my 12 gauge. When the gobbler moved so that he was in front of me and disappeared behind a tulip poplar, I mounted my shotgun, then fired when he reappeared, thus putting an end to my Virginia turkey season. Ironically, I had traveled over 600 miles the week before and not fired a shot and traveled six miles one morning before school and tagged out.

A great many Old Dominion sportsmen experienced the joy that I did that late April morning, as 17,915 Virginia toms were checked in. The tally was the fourth best ever and was an impressive 20 percent increase over the 2005 harvest. The upsurge was evident statewide.

Individuals east of the Blue Ridge killed 11,069 turkeys, an increase of 26 percent over 2005. Their counterparts west of the Blue Ridge experienced a solid 10 percent gain with a tally of 6,126. Gary Norman, the individual most responsible for keeping tabs on turkeys for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF), believes the 2004 hatch had quite a bit to do with the 2006 harvest.

“Over the past five years, the poult-to-hen ratio has averaged 2.1, the biologist explained. “In 2004, the ratio was 3.1, well above average for recent estimates. Two-year-old birds generally make up about one-third of our harvest, so that age-class was well represented in the population. Three-year-old birds are also a key component of the harvest.

“The ratio of juveniles to hens in 2003 was average. Collectively, we had a good number of 2- and 3-year-old birds available this past spring. Of course, it takes good weather, too, particularly on weekends and during the early part of the season, when most of the birds are harvested.”

Norman is correct that generally, the weather was favorable. On the opening day Saturday, I spent the morning in Franklin County where I heard approximately 12 gobblers sound off on the farm on which I was afield. Obviously, Saturdays are the days when most state sportsmen can go hunting, and that day throughout the season saw cool, sunny weather for the most part.

One of the most interesting things about spring gobbler hunting is that biologists often know well before the season what kind of year it will be. In any given year, the most vocal birds will be those 2-year-old males -- the same ones that are often most willing to venture in. So for the coming 2007 season, the 2005 hatch is crucial. Norman weighs in.