It is somewhat of a tossup in trying to pick my last candidate for inclusion as a “sleeper” county. Finally, I decided to go with Putnam, as it meets my criteria of having the minimum necessary kill per square mile, .7, plus it has produced fairly consistent results for the past five years. Putnam bottomed out at 211 birds checked in 2004 and climbed back to 233 in ‘05 and to 246 for this past spring season. This is a county that could very easily produce 275 to 300 birds for the upcoming spring season, especially if the hatch had a little luck with some drier early summer weather last year.

As you can see from the harvest data, I included two counties: Roane and Lewis whose kill per square mile figures were slightly below my base line criteria of .7 gobblers killed per square mile of total land area. If you were to back out the total area in fields and urban areas for both counties and just use the total forestland area for both of these counties, both would handily surpass the minimum criteria.

Lewis County has a total forest land area of 211 square miles. Using last year’s spring harvest of 258 gobblers, this would push the kill to 1.22 gobblers per square mile of forestland area. Roane County has a forestland area of 311 square miles, and using last year’s spring harvest of 294, the gobblers killed per square mile of forestland area would be .95

There were a number of other counties that could have been given the “sleeper” designation. A few of these meriting consideration include Taylor, Mineral, Upshur, McDowell, Calhoun, Gilmer and Monongalia counties. All of these counties have been showing an upward trend in harvest over the past season or so. However, a good many of these possibilities have weathered a poorer than normal season in 2004.

What you really have to consider, when looking at any of these possibilities, is whether you plan to try to hunt one of these areas during the week or on the weekend. Most folks striking off to try a new area will usually try to make a two- or three-day trip out of it. If you only go for a day and the weather turns sour for you, then you are out of luck.

Most of the folks who I know that get a case of gobbler “wanderlust” usually try to incorporate a little fishing, camping, canoeing, golf or mushroom hunting into this type of adventure.

Here is where places like Stonewall Jackson, Stonecoal and Bluestone really shine. I have a close friend who goes somewhere different in West Virginia to hunt each season -- places that he has never visited before. He uses the “dart board” method of selection. He pins a West Virginia state highway map up on a wall and he and his two hunting partners each throw a dart at the map. Whichever area has the two closest darts to it is how they arrive at their tentative destination! Overall, he would rate their efforts at about a seven out of 10 with a 10 being a great trip. This is definitely just a little off the wall, but it has worked well for them.

No matter how you approach trying a new spot or two, one thing is for certain, all of the above “sleeper” counties have the potential to provide for super spring gobbler hunting regardless of the method you use to select one!