The number has been out there for years, always just out of reach, like the four-minute mile before Roger Bannister came along.

The number is 10,000 -- 10,000 harvested turkeys in one season, that is.

"It's so tantalizing," admitted Mike Seamster, a wildlife biologist who heads the wild-turkey program for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

In about two months, Seamster hopes that he's looking at 10,000 from a different point of view, with the eyes of a proud father whose kids have all brought home stellar report cards.

Ten thousand is a barrier that turkey hunters in North Carolina have approached for years. They've been right there, rubbing up against it, but have never been able to push through.

This is the year, Seamster hopes, when North Carolina's spring turkey harvest breaks into five figures and never looks back.

"We've been so close," said Seamster. "We get right to the edge and have a bad hatch and drop back, then get right to the edge again."

Even though this past spring's hatch was forgettable -- poor is another word -- Seamster thinks hunters will take a giant step forward around the Tar Heel State.

"I think we'll get it this time," he said. "I'm pretty sure because we had a real good hatch (in 2004). We had a heavy harvest of jakes last year, but there should be plenty of those birds in the woods this spring, and they'll all be 2-year-old gobblers, which are the easiest ones to kill."

Not that any gobbler is easy.

"But providing we have good weather on our traditional high-harvest days (Saturdays), we'll have an abundance of 2-year-old birds in the woods. They're mature, but they're the most vocal of all your gobblers, and they're the easiest to kill.

"Having so many 2-year-old birds out there creates plenty of competition. You've got several birds out there gobbling, and they all want to get to that hen first. That sets us up for a good spring -- if the weather cooperates."

Last season, the 10,000-mark almost fell, especially if you add in the winter harvest. Hunters took 151 birds during the six-day either-sex season in January, then reported taking 9,824 birds during the month-long spring gobbler season, which opens this year on April 8 and runs through May 6.

Last year's spring harvest was the second largest on record, trailing only the 9,862 birds taken in 2003, the year before the first winter season. The combined winter-spring harvest in 2004 was 9,022.