It was the Year of the Big Bird. That's the only way to describe the spring turkey hunting season that ends tomorrow at 4 p.m. in San Diego County. Hunters took some of the largest toms I've seen.
Though the general spring hunt ended May 4, for the first time in the state junior hunters 15 and under joined archery hunters for a two-week extension of the season.
By many accounts, it has been a very different spring season for gobblers here. There's no scientific analysis of the local population of wild turkeys, but from what I saw in the woods and from what many hunters told me, it was a down year for jakes. There just weren't a lot of those 1-year-old birds that often travel in bachelor flocks in the spring.
There is, however, no lack of jennies, or first-year hens and older hens. It was common to see a bigger tom, even later in the season, with 10 or 12 hens of varying sizes in his harem. On one brisk spring morning I watched 10 hens walking and feeding along with four gobblers. On another, I had two hens come in to my calls as a giant tom stayed down the path and out of sight.
The breeding hens have been busy. Nests have been reported in many locations this spring, but there are reports of hens and eggs being gobbled up. Fred Presson in Mesa Grande found broken turkey eggshells around squirrel holes, and one nest that Scott Cannon of Ranch Peñasquitos found had nothing but the feathers of a hen and broken eggs. Still, poults have been spotted, and with fair rainfall this past winter, the grass is just high enough to camouflage next year's crop of birds and provide needed cover and insects for the birds to grow.
If you see a big tom turkey after 4 p.m. tomorrow, rejoice, because it survived and strutted through the maze of hunters that descends on this turkey hunting destination each spring.
As for the Year of the Big Bird:
Bob Dawson of Coronado used his bow to shoot what arguably is the largest gobbler ever shot by an archer in the county. The bird went 25 pounds, sported a 10½-inch beard and had 1¼-inch spurs. Dawson shot it on private land in the Julian area.
For the second year in a row, the Lake Sutherland lottery hunts produced a monster gobbler. Matthew Aguilera, a junior hunter, shot a bird that weighed 24½ pounds on the lake's scale. It dangled a 9½-inch beard and had 1¼-inch spurs. But only four birds were taken by hunters at Sutherland this spring.
One of the better hunt stories came from Sutherland, courtesy of John King of the San Diego Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation.
King sacrificed his hunt there to call for fellow NWTF member Bill Reimund and California Fish and Game Commissioner Dan Richards. I've hunted with Reimund. I know he's a good shot, because he once made a shot on a bird that remains one of the best I've witnessed. But on this day, with King calling, Reimund and Richards emptied their shotguns on a couple of jakes. Six shots, no birds. That may be a county record for two hunters in one sitting.
“I just sat there and watched them run away,” King said of the turkeys, not Reimund and Richards. “What can I say?”
A wise turkey hunter once told me, “Son, you're not a turkey hunter if you haven't shot and missed one.” To Reimund and Richards, I say this: I know it hurts, but the good thing about turkey hunting is there's always next spring. And those two jakes will be bigger and a lot wiser and probably produce more wild turkeys.
There's no question turkey hunting has become part of our outdoors heritage here. If you want to hear more good stories, turkey hunters and their families will gather at 4 p.m. today to celebrate at the annual San Diego County Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation's Fundraiser Banquet. It's at the Dreamcatcher Lounge of Viejas Casino. Members and nonmembers are invited.
Ed Zieralski: (619) 293-1225; ed.zieralski@uniontrib.com
