As Jim Low of the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) wrote in a recent press release, “Sometimes being right is no fun.”

He was referring to MDC resource scientist Tom Dailey’s prediction that the 2009 spring turkey season would produce a substantially lower harvest than last year.

Opening day numbers seem to confirm Dailey’s unfortunate forecast. Hunters in Missouri checked in 6,013 turkeys last Monday, a drop of 14 percent from last year’s harvest. MDC officials said the 2009 opening day closely resembled that of 2007, when a severe freeze set back wild turkey mating and nesting behavior by weeks.

Dailey attributed his predictions of a reduced harvest to weather-related nesting losses in recent years. The percentage of juvenile male turkeys in the harvest — 17.5 percent compared to around 22 percent in past years — also confirms Dailey’s prediction.

“I wish we had been wrong about the effects of last year’s record wet weather on turkey nesting success,” Dailey said, “but these numbers are what you would expect if nest success really was down.

“We are seeing about the same percentage of jakes (juvenile male turkeys) in the harvest as we had last year,” he said.

The reduced Jake harvest in 2008 was a result of the unusually late and severe cold spell in April, 2007.

A quick check of MDC’s interactive harvest map, which can be viewed at its web site at www.mdc.mo.gov (under the spring turkey hunting link), shows the southern part of the state didn’t fair quite as badly.

In fact, 10 of Missouri’s most southern counties actually showed increases of more than 33 percent. North of the Missouri River was a different story, with only four counties avoiding a reduced harvest compared to last year.

In Northwest Missouri, Nodaway County leads the pack with current totals of 128 birds, followed by Andrew County with 111. Buchanan County currently shows a total harvest of 54 birds.

This is in stark contrast to counties in the Ozarks and southeastern border counties near St. Louis, which are producing totals of more than 200 birds with two weeks left in the season.

Hunters who are concerned about the reduction in turkey numbers can adopt what Dailey refers to a “two-year strategy.” Hunters should focus their energy on making quality hunts this season for older birds.

“I hope hunters don’t hammer the jakes (1-year-old gobblers) on account of a lack of 2-year-olds. This year’s jake is next year’s 2-year-old,” Daily said. By focusing their hunts on older birds and less on just bagging a turkey, hunters can take the pressure off of the jakes and help improve things for the future.

The Conservation Commission opted not to put jakes off-limits to hunters this year. Dailey said that would have penalized hunters in areas where turkeys still are abundant. It also would put an unnecessary burden on hunters who might have trouble distinguishing between mature and juvenile turkeys.

“The recovery of our turkey flock will follow naturally when we get two or three years in a row of favorable nesting conditions,” Dailey said. “Hens are the key to rebuilding the population, so sparing a few jakes this year won’t increase the number of birds we see in 2010. However, in areas where turkey numbers are down significantly, it could make for a better quality of hunt next year.”

The 2009 youth-season harvest ended with hunters taking 15 fewer birds than last year. While this may be due to lower turkey numbers, there also was a drop in youth turkey permit sales of nearly 2000 this season. Considering this, the youth season was relatively productive, with higher success rates than 2008.

Hunters checked 46,000 turkeys in last year’s spring season. Dailey expects this number to be closer to 40,000 this year. This year’s spring turkey season began on April 20 and runs through May 10.

Outdoors correspondent Jeff Leonard can be reached at outdoors@npgco.com