"We don't do any kind of formal survey, so our information comes from statewide harvest information and from just talking to people about what they're seeing," Perrin said. "Based on those things, I say we're really looking pretty good.

"Last spring, for the most part, the state had an above-average hatch," he explained. "We saw birds being hatched early, all the way through the summer with late hatches. We had a dry spring for the most part, although it was a little wetter in the south. I'm hearing reports of people not seeing quite the number of birds there that were seen in the central and northern parts of the state."

Of course, those poult reports don't mean much for the 2007 season. Those birds have an impact on the season until 2008.

"The birds that were hatched last year will be jakes this spring," Perrin agreed. "Next year, there should be a bumper crop of two-year-old, good-gobbling birds. Of course, we've had good hatches all along, so I expect 2007 to be fine also."

HOLMES COUNTY
At this point, a note about Holmes County is in order. If you've followed this story at all, you already know that the FWCC closed Holmes to turkey hunting in 1998 because turkeys had virtually disappeared from the area. Over the past few years, biologists have released 121 turkeys at eight different sites within the county.

"We've monitored the turkey population each year by doing an annual bait-station survey to see how well those turkeys expanded and the population increased around the county," Perrin explained. "After the last couple of surveys, the counts were doing really well, so we put in a rule proposal to open up a limited spring turkey hunt."

So in 2006, for the first time in almost a decade, Holmes County had a short turkey season.

"We opened Holmes County to turkey hunting this past spring for a three-day hunt," Perrin said, adding that he thought it was very successful.

"We don't have a good way of monitoring the total harvest for the county, but there is one management area in the county. There were 10 permits available for that management area. Six people showed up, and five of the six killed turkeys. The sixth person got a shot and missed. That's excellent turkey hunting."

Holmes County is coming along very well, and biologists are continuing to monitor the flock.

TWO SUBSPECIES
If you hunt turkeys in Florida, you have the best of two worlds. Without leaving the state, you can hunt two subspecies of turkeys, the Eastern and the Osceola.

Hunters in the Northeast Region have it even better; they can hunt both within a few miles of each other.