Photo by Rod Cochran.

The most exciting way to bag a wily old tom turkey is to locate his roosting tree by using an owl, crow or other vocal stimulation that will generate his answering gobble. Then, next morning, you sneak into position in the pre-dawn's total darkness and wait for the fly-down. This technique builds about as much anticipation as any hunter can stand.

Bringing home a trophy bird is always a low-odds proposition, and the best-laid plans often go awry. There's no end to the bizarre surprises that frustrate turkey hunters -- such as the appearance of a coyote just as the birds fly down, sending them in a panic over the ridge.

But even if your most clever strategies are busted, your odds of calling in a gobbler this spring will still be about as good as it gets.

"The weather conditions for nesting last spring were ideal," said Dr. William F. Porter, who directs turkey research projects at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse.

"When we get an unusually dry May, nesting success increases. We believe this is because predators are less able to detect the scent of nesting hens under dry conditions. Bird hunters with dogs can readily identify with this, because dogs are more effective under moist conditions."

During the last 20 years, DEC researchers have developed a computer model based on nesting-season weather that predicts fall hunting success with 95 percent accuracy. They have projected a 40 percent increase in hunter success for last October.

ESF researchers hope to develop a spring-harvest computer model, and have submitted a funding proposal to the National Wild Turkey Federation.

"While we haven't done the work to predict spring harvests," Porter noted, "good hatches obviously translate to increased numbers of jakes the next spring, and 2-year-old gobblers the following spring. So it looks like at least a couple of years of good hunting are on the horizon."

Across the state, there are so many great hunting locations that each hunter probably has his own list of top 10 hunts for this spring.