A couple of other counties that merit consideration are Wirt and Jackson counties in District 6. Wirt is a relatively small county of just 234 square miles. Like a number of other counties in this district, it is starting to rebound rather nicely from its lower-than-normal harvests of recent spring seasons.

Wirt produced a harvest of 271 birds in 2006, which works out to 1.16 toms killed per square mile of area. Jackson is a county that in the late ‘90s and first couple years of the new millennium put up some rather impressive harvests, only to nosedive to 250 birds taken in 2004. However, since then, it has climbed back to 353 gobblers harvested in 2006, which gives it a respectable .84 gobblers killed per square mile of area.

Based on what I have heard from several friends over the past six months, both of these counties would merit serious consideration as places to head for in 2007, especially after the initial madness of the first three or four days of the new season drops off. Both of these counties are easy to get to and have decent accommodations from a standpoint of motels and restaurants (in Parkersburg and Ripley).

There are two wildlife management areas (WMAs) that produce decent turkey hunting. Frozen Camp WMA is 1,667 acres and is approximately eight miles east of Ripley, just south of state Route (SR) 33 east. Woodrum WMA is 1,700 acres and is situated just off Interstate 77 at the Kenna exit. You can access it by heading east on county Route (CR) 19 toward Kentuck. The wildlife management area surrounds the lake and can be accessed off CR 42 north and CR 19-9 south coming out of the village of Fletcher.

Another county that does not immediately jump out at you but has been a steady producer of good turkey hunting over the past five years is Roane County. As mentioned earlier, I was living in Roane County years ago when the turkey population was just beginning to expand. Even with the slight downturn the past couple of seasons, the hunting is still very good and ultra consistent.

Given that much of the state has had to deal with cooler and wetter early summer brood weather over the past several seasons, it does not seem like this county has experienced the dramatic brood losses that a number of counties across the state were hit with. Over the past five seasons, the harvests in Roane County have been 298 in 2002, 326 in ‘03, 294 in ‘04, 297 in ‘05 and 294 in ‘06.

If there is a major drawback to this county, it is that it is not readily accessible. There is not really any easy way to Roane County other than via U.S. Route 33/119 north, and SR 14 south. All three roads are two-lane highways that meander like the proverbial lazy snake! However, you can also look at this from the standpoint that this keeps the hunting pressure to a minimum.