Black Mountain State Game Refuge, west of Highway 23 near Turner Bend and Cass, was one of the original deer restocking sites (in 1926) and was also the site of Arkansas’ first elk reintroduction effort in 1933, and the state’s first ruffed grouse reintroduction effort in 1948, 1949, and 1950. Those things have nothing to do with turkey hunting, except that they give a broad hint that biologists thought the area provided good habitat and was hard enough to reach that the stockings had a chance of succeeding.

The old refuge is no more, but the Black Mountain area was restocked with turkeys in the 1960s, and the brooding bulk of Black Mountain itself still makes the place one of the harder-to-reach sections of White Rock. And that makes for good turkey hunting. So does the Salt Fork Walk-In Deer and Turkey Hunting area, a tract of almost 9,000 acres about ten miles southwest of Cass. Another big chunk of remote, rough country lies east of Forest Service Road 1504, on the east side of the WMA.

White Rock WMA is remote and rugged, but biologists still manage to maintain a good number of wildlife openings, which add to the quality of the turkey habitat. There are also many private inholdings that are partially or wholly cleared, adding to the overall habitat diversity. Abundant springs and a good network of surface streams round out the good habitat picture.

Forest Service regulations allow camping practically everywhere on White Rock WMA, except in food plots and sensitive areas with no-camping signs, and 280,000 acres of land makes for lots of good primitive campsites. There are also several developed Forest Service campgrounds: at Redding (on FS Road 1003, one mile north and three miles east of Cass); Shores Lake (15 miles north of Mulberry on Highway 215 and a half-mile north on FS Road 1505); Wolf Pen (22 miles north of Clarksville on Highway 23 and two miles west of the highway on FS Road 1003), and White Rock Mountain (seven more miles past Shores lake on FS Road 1505, then another three miles on FS Road 1003).

For an Ozark National Forest map, contact the Ozark National Forest, P.O. Box 1008, Russellville AR 72801. Currently, the cost is $6.

MADISON COUNTY WMA
This state-owned wildlife management area lies well north of the Ozark National Forest, in the north end of Madison County and east of Highway 23 a dozen or so miles north of Huntsville. This is a sleeper, utilized mostly by local hunters, and doesn’t get a lot of outside pressure after the first weekend of the season. Madison County Wildlife Management Area contains 14,185 acres in two sections, separated by a mile-wide strip of private land. The terrain isn’t quite as rugged as what you’ll find on White Rock, but it’s still not a place for the faint-of-heart and weak-of-leg.

The larger southern section contains roughly 9,000 acres and has a good interior road network, but the north section is virtually roadless. Good turkey populations exist on both sections, but if you’re looking for remote country and solitude, go to the north section and fall off into one of the canyons of the Rockhouse Creek drainage. The north section can be reached via the network of gravel roads from the southern section, and Highway 221 south of Berryville cuts across the northern end of the north section for approximately two miles. Highway 23 also borders about a half-mile of the southwest end of the north section.

Primitive camping is allowed on the area, but in designated campgrounds only. Commercial lodging is available in both Berryville and Huntsville. Area maps are available from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, 2 Natural Resources Drive, Little Rock, AR 72205, (501) 223-6300. You can also download a .pdf file map from the agency web site.