The end of March marks the renewal of two traditions. First, there's the springtime turkey mating rituals with all the gobbling and strutting that goes along with it. Second is the tradition of hunting those gobblers.

With a longstanding tradition of harvesting a lot of turkeys in the spring in Tennessee, things really couldn't get much better than to be in the Volunteer State for the next several weeks.

You already know we set consecutive harvest records for 21 years as the turkey population rebounded big time in the modern era. The string was broken in 2005, but a new record of over 38,000 birds being harvested was set in 2006. The last two or three years have been a little up and down, but who could ever complain about living in a state where more than 30,000 birds are harvested annually in the springtime alone?

Tag on another 3,000 birds being taken on the fall hunt opportunity each year, and the turkey situation here in the Volunteer State is the envy of many other states across the country. If you live in Tennessee, you live within the borders of one of the best turkey destinations out there.

As you'll read a little farther down, the springtime weather has hurt turkey hunting slightly in the last few seasons, but the weather's effects may work to our advantage finally this year. There are a lot of birds in the 2-year-plus category roaming the woods and fields of the state this spring. Put yourself in their way, and this could be a great spring!

With a bumper crop of turkeys still at hand, Tennessee has become a state known not only for serious fishing and great deer hunting but also for its turkeys. Let's take a look at where you need to be to get your bird this spring.

The State Of The Turkey Union
Before we get into the meat of this look at where your springtime birds will come from this year, let's a take a look at the state of Tennessee's Turkey Union. In other words, how our turkey population is doing through the eyes of our state turkey coordinator, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency's (TWRA) Gray Anderson.

There's no doubt the turkey hunting has been just a little tougher the last two springs in certain areas and better in others. Colder than normal springtime weather and late frosts can be blamed for the most part, but things are definitely looking up this year. Anderson likes what he thinks hunters will find this spring. He believes we will have another good year in 2010.

"Last year our 2-year-old birds were hatched from the 2007 Easter freeze and the 2007 drought, and we saw a significant increase in jake harvest as a result," explained Anderson. "There were not that many 2-year-plus birds out there. This year should be better for that two-plus age-class, so I hope our hunters see the results in their bag."

The nasty spring weather last year will still be playing a slight role this spring. Anderson said the poult counts came out okay, but the wet spring probably lengthened our nesting season and therefore lengthened our brood-rearing season. So far, brood counts appear similar to previous years, except that we are seeing young broods later in the year. The end results are that hunters may see quite a difference in jake sizes in the spring harvest because of this extended nesting season. But that's something we hunters can deal with readily. It'll make it even easier to distinguish them from more mature birds.