And that, of course, is one of the great things about fall turkey hunting -- an increase in bird numbers is often just one spring away when weather conditions during the nesting and rearing seasons are favorable. Certainly, this public land in Greenbrier County has many positives on its side of the ledger.

Twelve cabins and 16 campsites are available to rent, and there is even a range on site. Kates Mountain looms over the campground and traditionally has hosted several flocks of birds. Another plus, continued O'Brien, is that the public ground has received little fall turkey-hunting pressure the past few years, which is probably another reason the harvests have been low. To further put things in perspective, from 2002 through 2006, the harvest on state WMAs and forests has been 71, 53, 35, 73 and 32, respectively.

Located near White Sulfur Springs, the Greenbrier State Forest consists largely of mature hardwood forests with the red oak clan particularly present. A number of tributaries of the Greenbrier River also course down the mountainside and can draw birds. For more information or reservations, dial (800) CALL-WVA.

CALVIN PRICE STATE FOREST
Mark Wylie, superintendent of Watoga State Park and Calvin Price State Forest, informs that the 10,000-acre tract in Pocahontas and Greenbrier (only about 300 acres are in Greenbrier) counties receives little hunting pressure from fall turkey enthusiasts.

"The Calvin Price State Forest is not an undiscovered secret because we are overrun with hunters during the deer seasons," he said. "But for whatever reason, not too many people come here to fall turkey hunt. The fall season just is not as big a deal here as the spring season is, so that's a major reason why the pressure is light.

"A real plus for the Calvin Price is a 200-acre tract that has been cut. Terry Jones of the DNR really did a good job in making sure that cut would benefit wildlife. The timber harvest will provide some excellent edge habitat for turkeys and other wildlife and some good nesting areas for turkeys as well. Some people are very much against timber cutting on our state forests, but logging does serve a real purpose for wildlife."

Another plus is that part of the Calvin Price adjoins the Monongahela National Forest, so fall turkey hunters afield in this area won't have to worry about stopping at a boundary if they have found birds. An additional positive is that quite a few tributaries of the Greenbrier exist on the public land, and they provide a variety of habitats. The upper Greenbrier River creates one border of the forest.

Two areas of the Calvin Price State Forest, Wylie continued, stand out as being very isolated. One section on the southern boundary borders the Spice Run area of the Monongahela. This section of woods has been considered as a wilderness area in the past. The other portion of note is the Beaver Lick Mountain region on the east, which has very isolated terrain. Wylie described the "Cal" Price, as a whole, as being fairly mountainous.

The superintendent added that 10 cabins remain open year 'round on the adjoining Watoga State Park and make for convenient bases for sportsmen. Beaver Creek Campground offers 100 campsites and it remains open until the middle of December. For more information and reservations, call the toll-free number listed earlier.

SLEEPY CREEK WMA
Among the WMAs, one of the most consistent producers of fall turkeys the past five years has been the Sleepy Creek WMA and its 22,928 acres in Berkeley and Morgan counties.

I have been afield for fall turkeys on Sleepy Creek and like the variety of options hunters have available to them. For instance, on its eastern side a number of farms border the WMA. Hunters can traverse the relatively flat sections of this boundary (all the while, of course, remaining within the WMA) and take advantage of the number of flocks that will spend their days feeding back and forth between public and private land. The acorns on the former and the fields on the latter attract these birds. One landowner even gave me permission to hunt his land, so I spent the day on both his property and the WMA.

A second option is to venture deep into the tract, which I have also done. The namesake Sleepy Creek provides some back-of-beyond habitat, but it also is not nearly as steep as many public-land mountains in the state. Indeed, the majority of this WMA features elevations of less than 1,500 feet.

WARDENSVILLE & SHENANDOAH WMAs
Among national forest WMAs, state WMAs and state forests, the No. 1 and No. 2 locales for fall turkeys last year were the Wardensville WMA, which led the way with 27 birds checked in, and the Shenandoah WMA, which was second with 15. The former unit of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest encompasses 55,327 acres in Hampshire and Hardy counties and the latter unit of the national forest consists of 49,106 acres in Pendleton County.