Photo by Terry Madewell.

It’s a good thing that turkey hunters are passionate about the sport. It has been written many times that the pursuit of a gobbler is what tides those of us afflicted with “longbearditis” through difficult times when adult male turkeys are scarce.

Let’s hope we have more than mere hope with us in the turkey woods in 2008 -- we might need it. Things were tough enough in the turkey woods in the spring of 2007 with two straight poor turkey recruitment seasons in 2005 and 2006. Unfortunately, the 2007 reproductive season may be the worst of the last three years, based on preliminary reports from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR).

However, there are still gobblers in the woods and turkey hunters will go turkey hunting. With two straight poor reproductive/recruitment years, we had a shortage of those beloved 2-year-old gobblers, as well as jakes, in the woods last season. It may not be any better this year for many areas of the state.

According to Charles Ruth, Turkey and Deer Project Supervisor for the SCDNR, the current turkey population is down from a high point in 2004. The current estimate of our statewide population is 90,000 birds, down from the record of 120,000 turkeys.

However, just as during last season when there were fewer 2-year-olds in the woods than normal, hunters who literally go the extra mile can find turkeys to hunt. And once you get to the turkeys, many of these birds will be older gobblers. That means they’ve been hunted two or three seasons and are wise to many of our tactics. But they can still be had.

A couple of keys to success are patience and taking advantage of an opportunity when offered. Even older gobblers will at times be going solo and you can turn a henned-up gobbler problem into a successful hunt very quickly.

A two-day hunt with my stepson, Drew Reeser, last spring is a case in point. Most of the gobblers in the woods we hunted were the older, smarter birds. It seemed there were about “zero” of those eager 2-year-olds, at least where we were hunting. The first day of hunting was chock-full of frustrating series of events of trying to work gobblers away from their clinging harem of hens. We were close a couple of times, but never quite pulled it off.

We did have birds gobbling to our calls but no serious investigations.

The second morning started slow. We heard only one far-off gobble from the roost. We had opted to hunt a different area, hoping to find a lonely gobbler, sans hens. We planned to just get in his way and be quiet if we had to. About an hour after daylight, things were way too quiet for our liking.