Later, we used two logging roads to access different parts of the WMA, but by then, the prime gobbling hours of morning were over, and the late-morning period was unseasonably warm. Our last attempt to locate a bird was spent by ambling along a creek bottom looking for turkey sign.

The procedure that Chris initiated goes well when hunting the Neola or any of the WMAs that constitute the Monongahela. First, as was true for our first gobbler of the morning, look for the birds to be roosted in the Virginia or pitch pine groves that blanket many mountainsides, especially those that lie adjacent to oak-hickory or oak-pine groves. Second, expect to do some serious climbing before you set up on a roosted bird (as was the case that morning) or after you hear one sound off.

Third, if you fail to call in your first bird of the morning, walk the Monongahela's logging roads and ridgetops while sending calls into the hollows below. That was how we located our second longbeard of the morning. And, last, if all else fails, move along a WMA's creeks and their tributaries and attempt to locate feeding birds. On the Neola, that typically means hunters should trek along the North Fork of Anthony Creek, Meadow Creek, Laurel Run and their tributaries.

About 10 days later, I took a half-day of vacation time from the school where I teach and drove to the Rimel WMA (67,251 acres) in Pocahontas County, once again using SR 92 to access the Monongahela. (The Rimel also can be accessed via SRs 39, 28 and 84; the same routes will take you to the Neola as well.) Several years ago, the WMA manager for the Rimel, Cully McCurdy, had spent two days showing me around a 500-acre tract of this public land. Since then, I have made regular visits back to this one specific area and each time have worked mature gobblers.

The advice that Cully gave me on how to hunt the Rimel holds true on the national forest as a whole. That is, that sportsmen shouldn't let the massive size of these national forest units intimidate them. Don't try to learn multiple parcels of a WMA; instead get to know well just one small segment of the public land and claim it as your own.

For instance, "my" 500-acre tract of the Rimel features two parallel ridges with a sizable creek flowing between them. The eastern ridge features four finger ridges, and each of them has a small cove. During the pre-dawn period, I always walk in on the western ridge, as I have learned that gobblers infrequently roost there. When I hear birds on the eastern ridge, which has always been the case, I then dash down the mountainside, run quickly along the creek, then move up the eastern ridge until I surmise that I am about 100 yards from the gobbling turkey.

At dawn, I then decide whether to move closer along the main ridge after the birds fly down, sneak onto one of the finger ridges or wait where I am. For instance, last May while on the west ridge, I heard a gobbler on the fourth of the four eastern finger ridges. I had worked a tom on that same point the previous spring, and I guessed the tom (perhaps even the same one) would use the saddles on that finger to access the coves on either side.