Backs hopes the trend will continue, but continues to worry about habitat. In the summer of 2006, he traveled to areas of the state where turkeys were once released. Surprisingly, he found a phenomenal jump in human encroachment into the rural areas, noting that we are eating up landscape at a rapid pace.

As far as Indiana's top five harvest counties in 2006, there appears to be little change when compared with recent years. Switzerland County again led the way with 562 birds, while Dearborn County came through with 489. Perry County finished third with a harvest of 470, while Jefferson reported 461, and Parke 444. In 2005, the state's top five counties were Switzerland (478), Perry (445), Jefferson (415), Harrison (406) and Parke (376).

Although you see a couple of changes in the top five over the two-year-period, rest assured this isn't unusual. For instance, Dearborn wasn't in the top five in 2005, but they were close with a harvest of 368. In addition, while you see Harrison there in 2005, you don't see it in 2006, yet it was right there with a reported harvest of 431.

"You commonly see these fluctuations. You get a couple of counties that jump up, and then settle back down. I think part of this occurs due to the maturation of the population in individual areas. We've seen this in most of the southeastern counties. They have up-and-down years. You look at Switzerland and Jefferson counties and you see they really jumped up in 2006, yet I wouldn't be surprised if the harvest drops down in them over the next couple of years because they reach their saturation point," Backs explained.

As for public lands, Backs reported that Hoosier National Forest and others have come on strong in recent years. "We are well blessed right now," Backs said. "Our bag limits are pretty conservative, so we are not burning the birds on public land. I tell most of the folks who call that they will usually find plenty of birds to hunt on public land in the southern part of the state. There are often weekend and opening-day crowds, but during the week they will find turkeys."

Backs added that he hunts both public and private lands, and typically finds as many birds on public ground as he does private land. He said that he is still concerned about some of the management problems on some national forest lands, but at present the hunting is as good as it is on adjacent private lands.

Now let's get back to the future and what it holds. In years past, state officials have conducted roadside gobbling counts in April throughout several counties at various listening stops. And while Backs doesn't believe that the counts are accurate indications of annual trends in turkey populations, they do help the state to detect long-term trends for specific areas.

In 2006, gobbling counts were exceptional. The average number of gobblers heard was 1.45 per listening stop, while more than two were heard along some routes. In 2005, the average number of birds heard was .90, compared with .98 in 2004.

We can assume that the great hatch of 2004 contributed to the high average of birds heard in 2006. However, Backs said that gobbling activity is extremely changeable.

"We had a lot of local 2-year-old birds in 2006. You can run one of those routes one day and hear maybe 20 birds, and then run it the next day when weather conditions are about the same and you'll drop down to 10 birds," Backs noted. He said the reason is there are many variables to consider.