Flanked by Amherst's Tim Hoden and Goodview's Freddy McGuire, the author admires a bearded hen he shot last November during Virginia's fall turkey season. Photo by Bruce Ingram

Mae West once said that too much of a good thing is wonderful. And though I'm sure she wasn't referring to the wonderful happenstance that Virginia's early muzzleloader and early turkey seasons coincide in late October and early November every year, she just as well could have been. That's why on the first Saturday of November last year, Goodview's Freddy McGuire, a pro staffer for Primos Game Calls, and Amherst's Tim Hoden, a school administrator for Amherst County Schools, and I laid out our game plan to deer hunt in the morning, turkey hunt at midday and deer hunt again late in the afternoon.

All of us saw a randy Franklin County 8-pointer chasing does in the morning, but the buck was not a shooter and the does were scrambling away from the buck too fast for us to risk a shot. And so it was that while we were on the way to Freddy's Bedford County house late in the morning, he dialed up his wife, Amy. She reported that turkeys had been spotted in a field near their home and that maybe we should try there first.

When we arrived at the farm, we each went in separate directions. Just minutes after our arrival, I heard shouts from Freddy and Tim and glimpsed birds running past. Soon the three of us reconnoitered, and Freddy instructed me to set up in front of him and Tim. Freddy had already tagged a bird and wanted to save his two remaining tags for the spring, while Tim desired to save all three of his tags for the spring. I, on the other hand, had not killed a bird that fall and had no qualms about punching a tag.

The three of us then began belting out kee-kees, clucks and yelps and not long afterward, I heard McGuire hiss: "They're on their way from your left."

I quickly mounted my 12 gauge, but the birds had come upon us so quickly that several of them spotted my suspicious movement. The two lead birds began the species' alarm notes -- those dreaded putts that indicate that the gig is up. But then Freddy and Tim initiated a brilliant strategy that helped us overcome my blunder. McGuire began to purr and cluck very contentedly, while Hoden scratched in the leaves. One turkey paused just long enough for me to shoot.

Later as I was affixing a tag to a Bedford County turkey, I realized that I had just killed my first bearded hen.

Unfortunately, the sight of Old Dominion sportsmen placing tags on fall turkeys last year was not a common one. Just 5,656 birds made their ways to check stations, a decline of 14 percent from the 2003-2004 season harvest of 6,556. The harvest dropped 22 percent west of the Blue Ridge (2,938 to 2,285) and 7 percent east of the Blue Ridge (3,618 to 3,371).

The top 10 counties (with the harvest in parentheses) were Scott (205), Bedford (181), Franklin (174), Pittsylvania (164), Shenandoah (160), Halifax (155), Amelia (149), Rockbridge (122) and Buckingham (118).

A number of these counties broke into the top 10: Scott, Shenandoah, Halifax, Rockbridge and Buckingham.

The degree to which the harvest has declined can be seen by comparing the harvest figures of the top 10 2003 counties. They were as follows: Franklin (282), Pittsylvania (249), Bedford (207), Giles (176), Botetourt (174), Montgomery (166), Floyd (159), Amelia (154), Craig (146) and Bland (145).

The 205 turkeys that Scott recorded in 2004 to lead the state would have been good for only a fourth place finish in 2003. More indications of the drop can be seen by noting that Pittsylvania's harvest plummeted from 249 to 164 and Franklin's from 282 to 174.