Sportsmen can find more traditional turkey habitat at the 10,938-acre Chief Cornstalk WMA, about 15 miles southeast of Point Pleasant near Southside. Chief Cornstalk is heavily wooded, mostly with hardwoods, and contains dozens of clearings. Some of the clearings are pastures from the many farms that used to dot the countryside. Others are wildlife clearings specially created by DNR workers.

Hunters who plan to head toward Cornstalk should be aware that some of its gobblers are wearing radio transmitters as part of an ongoing DNR study. All of the radio-equipped birds were poults last fall when they were trapped and outfitted with their transmitters. Hunting the radio-equipped birds is legal, but hunters should return the transmitter to DNR personnel and be prepared to describe precisely where the bird was killed.

In any ranking of West Virginia's prime turkey areas, Summers County always tops the list of southern counties.

Summers was one of the first areas biologists targeted when they began trapping wild turkeys from the state's mountain highlands and transplanting them to other parts of the state. As early as the mid-1960s, the birds transplanted to Summers had spread to almost every corner of the county's rugged, hardwood-covered terrain.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Summers ranks consistently high among the state's best spring gobbler counties. Last year was a case in point. Hunters bagged 344 toms, the state's third-highest total. Summers finished eighth in birds killed per square mile at 0.91.

Part of the reason Summers produces so well is because its birds are so difficult to get to. Although Interstate 64 cuts across the county's northern corner and I-77 skirts its western border, most of the highways that lead to the best hunting spots are twisting secondary roads.

The good news is that those tortuous thoroughfares lead to some terrific public-hunting areas. Of those, the 17,632-acre Bluestone Lake WMA justifiably attracts the most attention. Year in and year out, it ranks among the state's best public-land gobbler producers. Most of the tract encompasses the hills that surround its namesake lake; the rest surrounds the Bluestone River downstream of Pipestem State Park. SR 20 provides access to the property about two miles south of Hinton.

North of the town, the New River Gorge National River beckons to sportsmen. Administered by the National Park Service, the lands that surround the river are open to hunting. The river's proclamation boundaries include more than 50,000 acres. Not all of that land is in Park Service hands yet, but several large areas are open to the public near Meadow Creek and on the mountainside between Brooks and Sandstone.

Though it's the smallest of the state's best-bet counties, the Northern Panhandle's Marshall County came up big last year. Sportsmen took 1.04 gobblers per square mile from its rugged, rolling hills. That was the state's fourth-best productivity ratio -- which, combined with the county's eighth-best harvest of 280 birds, elevated little Marshall to elite status.

The lion's share of those turkeys was taken on private land because the county's public-hunting opportunities are rather limited. The 2,000-acre Cecil H. Underwood WMA is just about the only game in town because the 56-acre Burches Run Lake WMA simply isn't big enough to produce many turkeys.

Oak-hickory and cove hardwood habitat dominate the Underwood tract, and the timber stands are interspersed with wildlife clearings. Access trails are numerous, but camping isn't allowed on the property.

U.S. Route 250 and SR 2 bracket the county along its eastern and western boundaries. Between the two arteries lie miles and miles of hilly, twisting secondary roads. Motel rooms are abundant along SR 2 near Moundsville, the county seat.

Perhaps the state's most hunter-friendly county, at least in terms of ease of access and places to stay, is Monongalia County.

Monongalia's county seat of Morgantown has hundreds of motel rooms. Interstate 68 skirts the town's southern edge and I-79 grazes its western boundary, so getting there is no problem from any direction.