When Tennessee's youth hunters take to the woods tomorrow morning, the 2007 spring turkey season will officially be kicked off. By all indications, 2007 should be another solid year for Volunteer State hunters.

Tennessee has long established itself as being among the upper echelon of states in the continental U.S. for turkey harvest. With an estimated turkey population of over 200,000 and an annual spring harvest that has long since exceeded 30,000, Tennessee is a true destination for Eastern wild turkeys, and we don't expect that to change in 2007. A change from a three-bird bag limit to a four-bird bag limit prior to the 2006 season seems to have gone over well, giving Tennessee one of the more liberalized harvest opportunities among states offering the Eastern bird.

The Volunteer State's estimated flock of 200,000 birds won't rank it at the top of Southeastern states; Alabama (350,000), Georgia (350,000) and Mississippi (294,000) all have more birds, as does Kentucky (230,000). Besides the Carolinas, Virginia and Arkansas, Tennessee ranks near the bottom in turkey population. But compared with the rest of the nation, the Volunteer State is riding high. The Southeast has led the comeback of the Eastern wild turkey, and only Missouri — with its booming population of over 500,000 birds — can boast better success than the region south of the Mason-Dixon line.

While Tennessee may lag some of its neighbors in numbers, it doesn't lack much in harvest. Hunters checked in a total of 36,052 birds last spring, a new state record. Record harvests are nothing new for Tennessee; hunters have been setting records nearly every year since the wild turkey began making its comeback. But in 2005, the streak of 21 consecutive years with an increased harvest was snapped when just over 33,000 birds were killed, nearly a thousand lower than 2004's total of 34,000.

It didn't take long for hunters to bounce back, however, and last year's record harvest was due only in small part to the increased bag limit, as Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency biologists estimate that only a fraction of the best hunters are able to fill all four tags.

As Tennessee hunters turned their attention towards the 2007 spring season, the first indicator of the approaching spring came in the fall, with the TWRA's annual brood survey. The survey found numbers that were somewhat in line with numbers of recent years (click here to see the story). The 2005 hatch — which included this year's two-year-old longbeards — was the poorest on record in Tennessee, but biologists caution hunters to not read too much into a single poor hatch.

TnHunting.Com turkey pro Richard Burchett said that his observations indicate the '06 hatch was at least in-line with, if not better than, previous years.

"Last year's weather was typical for Tennessee. Just going on my own personal experiences through the course of the year, it appears to me that poult recruitment into the flock was as good or better than in years past," Burchett said.

Burchett, a member of the pro staff for one of the nation's most popular custom callmakers — Turpin, said an understanding of breeding requirements for hens is in order.

"A hen only needs to be bred one time in order to fertilize a clutch of eggs," he said. "If she attempts to nest and fails, she can simply lay another clutch and start over. After the fertilization window has passed, if she still hasn't nested successfully, she will seek another tom and start the process over again. I've seen hens sitting on clutches as late as late June!"

After a mild start to winter and an ending that was colder than normal but not too much so, and didn't include any major winter storms, the flock should be in fine shape for spring.

Weather during the month of March, typically Tennessee's stormiest month, has been mild — with temperatures regularly reaching into the 70s — and dry. Although there are some indications in the long-range forecasts that a major weather pattern change could affect the first few days of the spring season, if March's good weather carries through to April, it will be all the better for Volunteer hunters.

"If the March weather pattern continues into April, generally speaking, the hunting should be better for the average hunter," Burchett said. "Reason being that hens will be able to nest successfully with fewer wasted efforts, which will translate into lonely gobblers earlier in the season. A lonely gobbler is a dead gobbler!"

The weather pattern may create some minor problems from West Tennessee hunters. On the TnHunting.Com forums, as well as other forums on the Internet, hunters in the western portion of the state have complained of an early greenup, which could impact the distance at which gobbling birds can be heard.

In the eastern portion of the state, meanwhile, the greenup appears to be on schedule as the season draws near.

While it isn't as easy to predict a record harvest for the 2007 spring turkey season as it was for the 2006 fall deer season, when TnHunting.Com correctly predicted a record whitetail harvest, hunters throughout the state should have ample opportunity to bag birds this spring, as flock disbursement today is better than it has ever been.

"Even though the population of birds may seem a little down in areas that have been loaded in the past, turkeys being in more places equals more opportunities for more hunters," Burchett said. "I expect the overall state harvest would to be on par with years' past at the least, and wouldn't be surprised to see another record year if the weather cooperates!"

Last spring, Region II (Middle Tennessee) continue to dominate the spring harvest, and that shouldn't change in 2007, as the traditional stomping grounds haven't changed. But there were some changes in the county-by-county harvests in 2006; perhaps most surprisingly, Greene County — an East Tennessee county in Region IV, the state's lowest-producing region for turkeys — took top honors among individual counties, with over 1,000 birds harvested.

Public land also remains a viable option for Tennessee hunters. Though TWRA's public hunting program has suffered in recent years, more grounds are being opened to spring turkey hunting, including a couple of spots that opened in the past two years and immediately jumped to the top of Tennessee's public lands — the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge and Milan Army Ammunition Plant (click here for TnHunting.Com's annual list of public turkey hotspots).

Though the entrance of new hunters to the spring game has leveled off somewhat after the explosion of the late '90s and early '00s, first-timers continue to trickle in. That, coupled with more turkeys in more areas than ever before, should help Tennessee hunters turn in another outstanding harvest this spring. With a little luck and some cooperation from Mother Nature, don't be surprised if Volunteer hunters begin another streak of consecutive record-setting springs and extend this one to two.