With wild turkey numbers supposedly down, they certainly aren't out! At least I couldn't tell from a couple of last year's close encounters I had with gobblers. As I nonchalantly followed a gas line back to my truck from a mostly uneventful late-season hunt, a thunderous gobble all but caught me in mid-stride.

The bird was close (as in less than 100 yards) and downhill somewhere. I quickly set up a hen decoy and moved to the nearest suitable tree along the perimeter of the cleared right-of-way. This put the decoy slightly above me with the turkey below.

The bird was a coy boss, gobbling only another time or two over the next half hour, which seemed like a millennium to my season-worn body. But I wasn't going to make the greenhorn mistake of calling too much. With the perfect full-camouflage setup, the gun in shooting position and all the other accoutrements that turkey-hunting dreams are made of, the cherry red stationary periscope of a gobbler head appeared at the predetermined shooting lane.

It was literally in the line of my sights! Why wait for the bird to get closer revealing its full self, I mused. This bird was as good as in the bag. It was late in the season and I had worked many a hard morning. The blast of the shotgun abruptly ended that thought process.

Just one problem, however, the gobbler flew off leaving me in disbelief! There was nary a feather cut from this Jackson County bird. As I counted the paces to its "wide-open" position, I quickly realized the mistakes of both underestimating the range and not waiting a few more minutes for a more exposed shot.

After all these years and turkeys later, you'd think I would have learned. Yet, it's precisely such meltdowns that keep us youthful and returning back to the spring woods for more. You really do remember the ones that got away.

At this time, I'm not prepared to divulge any further fretting of the 2004 season, which was supposed to be a "silent spring" to quote a fellow spring gobbler hunter survey participant. The moral here is that just because we're not breaking annual state harvest records like clockwork does not mean the hunting's for naught.

For some, however, that must be the case. I can't ever remember experiencing as little hunting pressure as I did last year. That's just a further "plus" side reason to go per the increased quality of the less-crowded hunting. Without others to blame, you can flub gobblers all on your own! All kidding aside, just what the heck is going on with our wild turkeys?

Once seemingly ever on the increase, the 17-year consecutive string of annual spring turkey records ended in 1995. For that stunning sequence that began circa 1979, the record harvests grew from a meager 873 turkeys to an astounding 16,770 birds! We may have, in fact, gotten a little spoiled. As much as we hate to see it happen, natural populations eventually must top out, saturate, or reach carrying capacity as the professionals say.

So what's the story here and now a decade later for this grand game bird? Is there a glimmer of hope? Will the big birds throw us a bone every now and again, even if only for an occasional kill record? Sure, and yes is the answer. They did so with the reigning harvest record or 17,875 birds in 2001. What's more, spring turkey kills have averaged around 13,500 birds per annum since that string-ending year of 1995.