Turkey hunting across the Commonwealth has dramatically improved over the years and continues to get better. The author and his son, James, pose with a fine gobbler, which the young hunter bagged last season. Photo courtesy of Travis Faulkner.

It's funny how I can still remember every detail of my first successful turkey hunt in the Bluegrass State. It seems like only yesterday when I, as a teenage boy, watched that first longbeard bust out into a full-strut pose and heard its ground-shaking gobble.

That was all it took to forever change something deep inside of me.

These days, my son James shares that same passion and burning desire to get out there during spring. Along about March, we both come down with longbeard fever. And it seems like with each passing season, the symptoms only get worse.

At this point, I've tagged a ton of thick-bearded gobblers from across the country, but a strutting longbeard still has what it takes to make me come completely unraveled.

Lately, I've enjoyed watching my son grow into a turkey-tagging machine. I love spending time with my boy James and my father Jim in the springtime woods. During the last Kentucky spring season, James, my father and I made it tough on the longbeards. Consequently, during the youth weekend, James was able to punch his tag with a monster gobbler packing a paintbrush for a beard.

Later that spring, my father and I filled both of our tags while hunting in mountainous Whitley County.

In the western part of the state, other hunters -- like my good friends Harold Knight and David Hale -- also experienced a phenomenal year.

Last season, in fact, Harold and David both tagged out in western Kentucky, as did several of their grandchildren. Harold and David were able to watch their love for spring turkey hunting come full circle as Connor and Tyler Knight, along with Blake and Dylan Edmonson, all dropped the hammer on nice birds in their home state.

It's amazing how good turkey hunting across the Bluegrass has become in recent years!

When I was a boy, all we had to hunt in mountain country were squirrels, rabbits, grouse and a few scattered pockets of quail. Back then, there weren't that many deer. And until my late teenage years, I didn't even see my first turkey.

These days, a hunter would be hard-pressed to drive anywhere in the commonwealth and not find good numbers of turkeys. Without question, the restoration efforts, conservative bag limits and intense management practices of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) have transformed our state into a premier turkey-hunting destination.

Hunters across the Bluegrass State experienced another phenomenal spring last year and tagged a staggering 27,064 birds statewide.

On that positive note, let's take a quick look back at where last spring's top harvest counties were -- and check with the experts to see where this season's hotspots should be.

TOP HARVEST COUNTIES
Statewide, the top six harvest counties all put up some impressive numbers during the 2008 spring season. Last year alone, Hart, Muhlenberg, Logan, Ohio, Grayson and Crittenden counties each recorded over 500 birds. These amazing statistics add up to well over 3,000 tagged turkeys in these six areas alone.

This coming spring, these numbers are only expected to get larger.

Another head-turning fact: Of the six top harvest counties, five are all from the legendary Green River Region, which consistently leads the pack in overall harvest numbers and shows no sign of ever slowing down.

Steven Dobey is a wildlife program coordinator for the KDFWR. According to him, several key ingredients enable a county or region to produce high harvest numbers.

"A combination of factors contributes to a region's overall potential of for wild turkeys. Most of those factors are related directly to the surrounding habitat. Food, an obvious consideration, comes in the form of natural items or agricultural crops.