BY JIM NIEMIEC
PASO ROBLES – Mother Nature issued up a huge change in weather patterns for California the past couple of weeks. That cold and cloudy weather that brought heavy snow and up to 5 inches of rain, has given way to bright sunny days, with temperature approaching 100 degrees this past week. The outlook for opening weekend of the spring turkey season had been tending to a late dispersal of Rio Grande turkeys, but as of press time, turkeys should have broken away from winter flocks and there should be a lot of vocal gobblers out looking for breed-able hens.
WON checked in with guides and outfitters to get an updated status of what turkeys are now doing.
Master guide and outfitter Clayton Grant, of Bitterwater Outfitters, called in with following, “There is a lot going on afield right now. The turkey population here along the Central Coast is strong with a very good population of adult gobblers. The sky has been mostly clear of clouds and the sun has been bright, and these conditions seem to have pushed ahead the first major dispersal of hens. We are now seeing a lot of smaller flocks of hens, mixed with jennies and jakes, and gobblers are moving around a lot too. While the toms are not being too vocal at fly down, they seem to be doing more gobbling later in the morning. I am very optimistic about turkey hunting this season, as there are lot of toms out there, the food source(s) are excellent and native cover is abundant.”
Hunting guide Don Anderson, thehuntpro.com, is very optimistic about the spring season and filed this report. “There was a good carry over of adult toms from last season. Also, there was an above normal hatch of jakes the past two springs, which will be two-year-olds this year that will help with the number of adult birds in the field. We had above normal rainfall this winter, which has helped the feed, the only problem is that by the end of the spring turkey season the feed may be so tall that it might be hard to place out decoys.”
Anderson went on to add, “With the warm weather we have had the last two weeks, I have noticed that some of the hens are now splitting away from larger groups and going on their own during the day. The toms are also in smaller groups and are real active, especially during the morning hours. So, it looks like things are about two weeks earlier than last year, which is great news for opening weekend in that it will be easier to pull a tom away from the big groups into your decoy spread.”
Outfitter and guide Chad Wiebe, of Oak Stone Outfitters, thinks that this spring will offer up unusual turkey hunting. “This year will definitely be different than a normal spring season. The early rains in December and warmer than normal January gave us an abnormally early feed growth. With that in place, the season seems to be a full month ahead of schedule. The birds are already started to break up into their spring flocks and have started using their traditional spring roosts.”
Weibe added, “I would predict that the opener will have more vocal toms late in the morning with most hens building egg clutches and nesting. More in line with behavior we see mid-April. For the past two seasons we have witnessed a rise in the younger age class of birds, resulting in more 3 to 4-year old toms during our 2026 scouting.
San Diego County and the Clevland National Forest were recently checked out by NWTF committee member Steve Turigliatto and he sent in the following update, “Dispersal is in full swing. A lot of single hens are starting to be seen, along with gobblers following multiple hens away from the winter flock-up areas. There is a very good carry over from last year’s great numbers of jakes. This year’s observed jake numbers has not been good so far, but with so many 2-year olds, it could be that we just haven’t seen them yet. When the bell rings, that will tell the tale. I did see 6 jakes together during my last scouting trip.”
