Forget about the good old days. Hunting for deer, turkey and bear in the upcoming seasons is going to be … well, it just doesn’t get much better.

Rabbit hunting will be good, too, but if you are a grouse or quail hunter your dogs are going to have to cover a lot of ground in order to point what often will be a disappointing numbers of targets. Here are my preseason predictions, based on personal observations, input from Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologists and antidotal reports from other hunters.

DEER

Recently my wife, Katherine, and I drove about 35 miles on a rural road and counted 144 deer just before sundown. I was relating that to a friend who lives in Craig County and he said that was nothing. On one of his trips he’d counted four times that many.

There is no scarcity of deer. But what about bragging-size bucks? The 2007-08 season is shaping up as a trophy deer year, for several reasons. Thanks to a decent food supply and mild weather the past winter, bucks came into the antler-growing season in good shape.

What’s more, there is a big-buck trend in progress as hunters manage for mature bucks and pass up shots at young ones. This has been evident in the large number of bucks entered in recent big game contests. The Virginia Deer Association show in Richmond registered 302 bucks, up more than 75 from what has been average.

“I had many persons who could not believe that the vast majority of them came from Virginia in just one season,” said Matt Knox, DGIF deer project manager.

The Eastern Big Game Show, held in Harrisonburg, attracted 267 deer, an increase form the 230 of the previous season. The eastern and state show is set for Franklin this weekend and is expected to continue the high numbers trend.

When you see large numbers of deer in the field often it is an indication that the mast crop is poor. It remains too early to say that for certain, but at best it appears to be spotty -- decent in some areas and poor in others.

Hunters reported killing 223,198 deer the past season, which was a 4-percent increase from the previous season, and 7 percent higher than the 10 year average. That caught Knox by surprise. Following three consecutive years of record female deer kills, he had expected a decline.

“I hope the deer kill is down [this season], but I have predicted that and been wrong for the past two seasons,” said Knox.

A decline in the kill would mean that the herd has stabilized and is not getting out of hand.

TURKEY

I recall a dozen years ago Gary Norman telling me that his goal as the DGIF biologist was to see the turkey population expands to the point that it would be common for people traveling to see flocks of the big birds from their vehicle. That day has arrived.

I have been seeing numerous turkeys along roadways, from the mountains of Southwest Virginia to the Eastern Shore. There will be plenty of turkeys for the fall/winter season.

Norman has been getting reports of abundant turkeys from several sections of the state, especially west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“I’ve had fewer reports in the east, but what I’ve heard is likewise promising,” he said.

Hotspots include Giles, Craig and Montgomery counties where the best broods in recent years are being observed. Norman said his contacts in the northern Shenandoah Valley are seeing more broods this year than in recent years.

“One of our former technicians works in Bath County and he saw more broods in July than he’s seen in years,” said Norman. “He commented that observations have declined in August and that could be due to drought conditions in some areas that may have impacted insect populations and soft mast production.”

Turkeys currently are spending lots of times in open fields. Whether there is enough mast in the woods to lure them away from the fields by the late October hunting season is uncertain at this point.

BEAR

Virginia’s bear kill has been increasing about 8 percent each year, and that isn’t expected to deviate much this season, according to Jaime Sajecki, DGIF bear project leader.

Complaints of bears invading populated areas and causing crop damage are at a record high. This could be the sign of an increasing population or an indication of a poor food supply, probably both. Soft mast -- berries, cherries, seeds and the like -- was damage by a hard freeze in the spring. Mast that escaped the freeze has been adversely impacted by dry weather in the summer months.

Hounds men out during the chase season have had to deal with hot, dry weather, not exactly desirable conditions for striking a bear. Even so, they have been seeing good numbers of bears.

RABBITS

From spring into summer, I observed impressive numbers of rabbits. Come fall, the count dwindled rapidly. That trend is not unusual, but this time it probably was hurried along by the hot, dry weather of late summer and early fall.

Rabbit populations have been riding a high the past several years in Virginia. Look for a season this time similar to last years, says Pat Cook, small game biologist of the DGIF. Last year was a good one.

Interest in rabbit hunting has been holding up, even during a time when big game hunting has become highly popular. The latest DGIF hunter survey revealed that nearly one-quarter of the license buyers in Virginia hunt rabbits.

GROUSE

The past decade, grouse hunters have had to work hard to flush their targets, and that won’t change this season. DGIF trend data suggests that breeding population levels have declined 3.1 percent annually the past 10 years. Add those figures and you conclude that the population is down about 40 percent in a decade.

Some sportsmen, with good dogs, continue to enjoy decent hunting. Much of that now is found on private land because national forest land is not timbered enough to provide the kind of new succession habitat that grouse need to thrive.

On the average, you pretty well can figure that it will take an hour of pushing through grouse covers for each bird flushed.

QUAIL

The quail population has been down for years, and don’t expect this season to be anything like a turnaround. Fact is, expect it to be pretty sorry. Look for a season similar to last year’s, said biologist Pat Cook. With the exception of a few pockets where birds could be found, last season was just another in a string of dismal seasons.

Quail had the benefit of a mild winter void of heavy snow, but there simply wasn’t enough of them, or enough habitat, to make a difference. The current drought conditions probably haven’t had an impact on quail, Cook said.

The DGIF is encouraging the use of native warm season grasses in livestock operations to improve quail habitat.