A second tag costs $10, no matter where you live. Habitat stamps and access validation add a few dollars to the final bill. The bag limit is two turkeys, and legal sporting arms include bows and shotguns only. Mobility-impaired hunters may use a crossbow. No centerfire or rimfire rifles may be used.

Now here's how to get to Borrego Mesa: From Santa Fe, head north 16 miles on Highway 285, which will take you through both the Tesuque and Pojoaque pueblo lands. At State Road 503 -- which has a traffic light, believe it or not -- head east towards the mountains through the village of Nambe.

Follow the signs toward Santa Cruz Lake. Turn off on Forest Road 306, which will take you to the Borrego Mesa Campground. You're there!

While you might run into turkeys right in the campground, chances are you won't. So what should you do with the largest designated wilderness area in New Mexico staring you in the face? Read on, because hunting these birds requires a few special tactics you might not be familiar with, if you've never hunted gobblers in the Rockies before.

GALLOPING GOBBLERS
I began hunting at an early age, which basically meant following my dad. We trudged through the scrub oak and ponderosa pine forests around our home in Northern New Mexico. Deer were our intended prey, but turkey and black bear were included in the license for a nominal fee. We always paid the fee, though I suspect it was more wishful thinking than any real hope of even seeing a turkey, much less bagging one.

Still, I carried the little 25-20 everywhere we went and was ready to do my part, should the opportunity arise. It never did.

So rare were the birds back then that just finding my first turkey tracks inspired me to ask a barrage of questions about wild turkeys. Nixon was president. Vietnam was the hotspot, and turkeys were as rare as, well, hen's teeth.

The one question that sticks in my memory was "Do they fly or walk?"

My dad thought for a minute, then answered, "Actually, most of the ones I've ever seen were sort of . . . galloping along."

Galloping birds? Then and there, I was committed to seeing a turkey in the wild.

It took almost 20 years for me to realize that goal, in part because of low turkey populations, but mostly due to my inexperience and lack of effort. I grew up, became a respectable hunter, put some meat in the freezer and horns on the wall. But I never went out in springtime, never heard a hen yelp or a tom gobble. That would change.

TURKEY DAN
I realize he sounds like something I made up just for this article, but I assure you, "Turkey Dan" is a real person and he's earned the name, too. It has been 15 years since he burst through my door swinging a very large gobbler over my head (his first). More importantly, since then he has repeated the trick every year (yes, every year!), not to mention helping dozens of guys like me bag our first birds.