Photo by Ron Sinfelt

The drive up state Route (SR) 92 in Greenbrier County was as it always is, a pleasant sojourn in beautiful rural southern West Virginia. Twenty minutes before sunset I pulled off the main highway, parked and went walking through the Neola Wildlife Management Area (WMA) of the Monongahela National Forest. Coming to a hollow below a pine-covered mountainside, I pulled out a box call and cutted loudly three times. About 100 yards above me in the pines, a gobble rang out.

I then walked back to my vehicle where I found my hunting partner for the next day, Chris Ryan, a wildlife biologist for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR) from the Charleston office. Ryan apologized for being late because of traffic and the long drive from the state capitol. He then bemoaned the fact that he hadn't been able to scout the Neola or the nearby Rimel WMA in order to find a gobbler or two to pursue. I responded that we were all set in that area.

The following morning, Ryan and I climbed up the steep mountainside on the opposite side of where the gobbler was roosted and then skulked down a logging road to where we were about 75 yards from the roosted bird. Setting up in the far end of the same pine grove where the tom was perched and just off the logging road, I was very confident of our chances.

Just before dawn, the wildlife biologist emitted some soft tree yelps and I followed with some sleepy clucks. Our tom responded enthusiastically, but so did several hens. Fifteen minutes later, we heard the assemblage fly down, and the tom began to gobble nonstop. Some 45 minutes later, he was still at it, but the hens were just as vocal, as the old boy seemed rooted in the logging road just 60 yards from our position.

While the racket was going on, Chris and I heard footsteps in the leaves -- a turkey was on its way, not along the logging road, but through the thicket. To our surprise, a hen appeared and continued walking toward us. When the bird was about 10 yards from us, she started putting and then flew into a tree.

Suddenly, all members of the choir ceased their racket and for 20 minutes we heard nothing. A half-hour later, we decided to inch our way through the forest to where the birds were, but all we found was a lonesome hen standing in the tote road. The old monarch and his harem had departed for parts unknown to us.

The 97,928-acre Neola WMA in Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties is one of my favorite destinations for spring gobblers in the Mountain State. Ryan said that this public land, and the Monongahela National Forest as a whole, is an outstanding destination. In fact, many readers of this magazine might be surprised about how little hunting pressure the Monongahela actually receives.

"The Monongahela National Forest does not receive nearly as much hunting pressure during the spring gobbler season as it used to," Ryan said. "The turkey population is now abundant around the state (even though slightly down because of a couple of bad brood years). This makes individuals more likely to hunt around their own house instead of having to travel to the mountains like they used to."

Ryan is especially familiar with the Neola WMA; the biologist even lived in a DNR cabin on this public land when he was working on a grouse research project. His knowledge of the steep terrain that is typical of the WMA was on display after our initial gobbler departed. For example, Ryan and I first walked to a ridge that overlooked a hardwood grove. There we cast calls to a hollow below. Hearing a tom respond, we moved into a pine thicket adjacent to the hollow, but we could not convince the longbeard to move off his strutting ground.