Crafty gobblers still roam the remote and rugged terrain of Missouri’s wilderness areas. Photos by Dian Cooper

A band of coyotes paused in their night of hunting on a far-off ridge to yip and howl; perhaps they’d been successful. A cold shiver ran up my spine, and a primordial sense of the wild -- that old relationship between hunter and hunted -- raised my hackles, summoning a stab of unalloyed fear. In the long history of humankind, we, too, have been the quarry of hungry animals.

Woven as it is into the fabric of our biological and cultural ancestry, the fear of being preyed upon is still very much present in humans. Too, the unbridled desire for the hunt, a basic, predatory instinct, still clings to our chromosomes.

I stopped to listen to the continued serenade of the coyote pack. More than an hour had passed since I’d left the parking lot on Bell Mountain, and a couple of miles of rugged Ozark terrain had passed under my boot soles since I’d left civilization behind me.

So far, I had neither seen nor heard another human being. A barred owl cast its eight notes into the morning air far down the valley. I took the lonesome cry to signal that my pursuit of a truly wild turkey would go well.

Another half-mile down the trail, I caught a glimpse of pink in the eastern sky. Just as I pulled my Hunter’s Specialties coyote howler to my lips, another coyote yipped for the last time as daylight approached. A lone gobble rang out in response on a ridge farther to the west.

The return of the wild turkey in Missouri is one of the greatest stories in American conservation history. With the state’s turkey population approaching 800,000 birds, hunters harvest around 50,000 gobblers each spring in the Show-Me State. In addition to the spectacular increase in the turkey population, the Missouri Department of Conservation has also completed an aggressive land acquisition operation to provide areas for future generations to hunt. Nearly all Missourians are now within reach of fabulous turkey hunting opportunities.

The most challenging and rewarding turkey hunting opportunities in Missouri lie within the "walk-in" turkey hunting areas on the state’s U.S. Forest Service lands. In these, hunters can enjoy solitude in some of the most scenic and wild areas of the state. The chances of encountering other hunters are far lower in these remote areas, giving adventurous turkey hunters their best shot at hunting truly wild turkeys.

The U.S. Forest Service now has 22 designated walk-in turkey hunting areas on the vast Mark Twain National Forest of southern Missouri. Comprising almost 80,000 acres, the system touches 20 counties in 11 districts. Use of motorized vehicles inside the walk-in area boundaries is not allowed. Access is by hiking, horse or mountain bike trails only.