Access the area via County Highway Y to Irish Ridge Road, and then follow Irish Ridge for about a mile to reach the first access point. The second point is on Upper Newton Road a couple miles from the intersection of Upper Newton Road and County Highway O.

A less productive section is the Kooyumjian-Lost Creek compartment in the eastern part of the county. The area consists primarily of young oak, pine and walnut trees, but the birds spend most of their time in small pockets of mature timber.

Access is off Pine Avenue, a mile and a half south of the intersection of Pine Avenue and State Highway 82.

The remainders of Vernon County Forest lands are closed to hunting from April 15 through Oct. 15.

For more information about Kickapoo, contact the property manager at (608) 625-2966. For DNR properties, call (608) 637-3938. For information on the tax lands, call the foresters at (608) 637-3784.

Contact the Vernon County Land and Water Conservation Department at (608) 637-5476 or the West Central Region at (715) 839-3700.

Langlade County Forest
Hunting the Langlade County Forest is worth the drive for Green Bay-area hunters looking for a spring gobbler.

Langlade County is in the middle of turkey-hunting zone No. 41 where nearly 1,000 birds were taken last spring. About a quarter of the hunters who went afield bagged a tom.

The mixed hardwood forest offers excellent turkey potential.

Hunters find that any breaks in the timber are great spots for strutting and bugging corridors. There’s not one place that is better than another. Look for large trees along the wooded openings to locate roosting spots. Droppings under branches that overlook relatively clear sections are a dead giveaway to their preferred overnight haunts. Also, check for stools and scratches a short distance back in the woods to find where the birds are spending the rest of their time.

The county forest covers 127,109 acres with several roads providing access to huge tracts of land. Streams and lakes add to the beauty and make it seem much farther from urban areas than it really is.

For more information, call Langlade County forest administrator Steve Jackson at (715) 627-6300 or the DNR’s Northern Region office in Rhinelander at (715) 365-8900.

Thunder Lake WA
“Wild turkeys are a very recent addition to Oneida County in northern Wisconsin,” wildlife biologist Ron Eckstein said. “In the last three or four years, they’ve really increased in numbers throughout the county, but the population is still lower than areas south of us and much lower than the southern Wisconsin populations.”

At this point, knowing the right property owners is the way to see birds. There’s plenty of public land in Oneida County like the Thunder Lake WA, but so far, turkeys seem more interested in private landholdings where the owners have improved white-tailed deer habitat that also benefits turkeys.

“There isn’t any place on public lands that have consistent turkey habitats right now, since the birds are gravitating to the private lands,” Eckstein said. “Our turkey population is increasing, but we have a ways to go.”

Getting a gobbler here will take some skill.

Decoys like the Pretty Boy and Pretty Girl are effective because after calling to get a tom’s attention, the decoys do all the work, Hale said. The male decoy’s big white head coupled with a real fantail along with a submissive hen sitting on the ground does the trick.