Division of Natural Resources biologists and game managers fan out across the state, searching the highest mountaintops and the lowest river valleys for fruits and nuts.

If they find oak trees laden with acorns, they note that. If they find cherry trees devoid of cherries, they note that too.

When they finish their frenzied mission, they'll funnel their findings to a handful of senior biologists who then incorporate it into the DNR's annual Mast Survey and Hunting Outlook.

Last year's survey more closely resembled a coroner's report than an inventory of potential wildlife foods. DNR officials, who even in poor mast years avoid using the word "failure," applied just that term to the 2009 mast crop. Never before in the survey's 40-year history had there been so little food for wildlife to eat.

Deer, turkeys and other game animals had to endure an especially long, hungry winter. The lack of food caused bears to hibernate early. Squirrel reproduction, which rises after good mast years and falls after bad ones, plummeted sharply.

This year's report won't be finalized until late September, but those doing the surveys say mast appears to be much more abundant.

One of my jobs here at the paper is to research and write the multi-page hunting-outlook tabloid published every year in a late September edition of the Sunday Gazette-Mail. For the past couple of weeks, I've been calling biologists and asking them to predict the sort of success (or lack of same) hunters should expect in 2010.

To a man, they've said hunters will need to work a little harder to find their quarry because acorns, apples and other critter foods are so abundant.

Last year, with the woods nearly barren of mast, animals congregated anywhere they could find a morsel or two. When critters hang together, they're easier to find and easier to kill.

This year, with the woods are filled with good things to eat, game animals won't need to converge on any given spot. Hunters who scout carefully can learn which foods are most abundant and which species are feeding on them. Hunters who don't scout will have to rely on luck.

The biologists I've talked to so far say acorns, and particularly white oak acorns, are quite abundant, especially at higher elevations. So are apples, grapes, hawthorn and other "soft mast" items.

Bear in mind, though, that any preliminary generalization is simply that - preliminary and general. The survey's final results will reveal which mast crops are most abundant, where they "hit" and where they "missed," how this year's crop compares to last year's, and how it compares with the survey's 41-year average.

If publication of this year's survey follows the traditional timeline, expect to see it show up on the DNR's website around Oct. 1.

When it comes out, what's in it will be news. Unless I suffer a total brain cramp (don't laugh; at my age it happens), I'll write an article that summarizes it, and will publish the results right here on the good ol' Woods & Waters page.