Yellowwood State Forest is 23,000 acres in Brown County. Take SR 46 some 10 miles east of Bloomington and follow signs on the north side of the roads to the forest office. Property manager Jim Allen said turkeys are well distributed, adding that many hunters use private lands close or adjacent to forest property lines, but stresses the fact that hunters must have permission to hunt on private land. Maps are available at the forest office, or call (812) 988-7945. Brown County gave up 194 birds in 2003 and 232 birds in 2004.

Hunting the state forests and Hoosier National is much like hunting private land. Success in hunting the forests, as hunting anywhere else, is predicated on preparation, including pre-season scouting.

However, hunting state and national holdings can be considerably easier than hunting some private lands, for the simple reason that the public lands are crisscrossed by fire lanes, horse and hiking trails and other avenues that make walking easier and infinitely more quiet. The rank-and-file turkey hunter knows stealth is requisite to success.

Brenda Cooper, who lives at Brownstown and is office manager at Jackson-Washington Forest, decided to take up turkey hunting after seeing the big birds as she drove around the property.

Her efforts went for naught for a couple of years, but in 2002, she bagged her first bird while walking a fire trail in the Washington County portion of the forest about 5:30 a.m.

"I was coming up on a pine thicket and I didn't want to scare them off the roost, so I sat down on a log that crossed the fire trail. Pretty soon I heard movement in the leaves down the ridge to the right, and I let out a yelp."

Cooper said the answering gobble shattered the silence of the woods and almost shook her off the log. A few minutes later, she bagged a 21-pound gobbler with 9-inch beard!

She adds that many other turkey hunters she talks with equate the importance of trails in the forest to turkey-hunting success.

It is interesting to note, too, that many of the other state and national forest managers and employees mention pine plantations.

With all of the above in mind, we went back to Backs to see what the person who knows our wild turkey flock best thinks about this year's spring season.

"We are projecting a total bag of 12,000 to 13,000 birds," Backs said. "We had good production in 2004 which will make for quite a few 2-year-old turkeys in 2006; however, although I haven't analyzed it yet, I'm a little concerned about what kind of production we had in this past summer (2005), which usually makes up 27 to 30 percent of our harvest. I guess I am being a little cautious. I have told some people I expect a total harvest of 12,000 birds, plus or minus 1,000."

Backs said weather always is a factor in turkey-hunting success, and noted that there are many other variables that enter the picture, especially these days with the turkey range extending the length and breadth of this oblong state.

In noting that the harvest of birds in last year's first fall turkey season should not adversely affect this year's spring harvest, Backs said 2-year-old birds make up a good percentage of the annual bag. "We should have a lot of 2-year-old birds this spring."

That sounds promising to me!