Well, the early bird almost got a face full of 5s. I got set up and settled in at the base of a tree on the edge of a pasture, with a small creek behind me with nothing but woods and thick brush going up the hill on the other side of it. My trusty hen decoy was set out about 30 yards directly in front of me, I had good cover from a thick briar patch on my left side, and a big white oak on my right. I was a few minutes behind schedule but had enough time to let things get nice and quiet before shot time, which was 5:50, with sunrise at 6:20 with temps right around 40°. About five minutes until game time I heard a couple distant gobbles to the south (my left) on the next property over.
Cool, sounds like the birds are going to be active this morning. Right about shot time I was getting ready to hit a few notes on my mouth call, just some typical early morning chatter to let the beardy bois know that I’m single and ready to mingle. I was just about to reach over and grab my drink to wet my whistle before a morning full of periodical calling and intense listening when ole Boss Tom sounded off maybe 40-50 yards to my left, clearly on my field and eyeballing my Henrietta. Anyone who has experienced this phenomenon Understands why we call them ‘thunder chickens’ and I when I tell you I didn’t just hear him gobble I felt it, I FELT it! It reverberated against my chest, which was now under immense pressure from my heart trying to pound it’s way out of my sternum…he bellowed a second time, seemingly closer than the first. The standoff was on and in full swing at that point.
He spent the next 10 minutes putting and drumming and I could hear every click and tick and hum, much like when a cat is purring in your lap. But I just could not catch a glimpse of him. I tried to give him some soft calls, trying to coax him in just a little closer, but to no avail. The first act closed when I heard him take flight into the trees behind me. Well that was fun. But what spooked him? My calling? My decoy? I spent the next few minutes trying to analyze every component to figure out why he flew the coop on me, what might need adjusting as far as my set up was concerned.
Then the second act opened. He fired two or three successive gobbles right behind me, maybe just a little further than our first encounter. Great! He’s coming back! He kept gobbling behind me, close enough to get my full attention but not far enough for me to be comfortable moving. So I resorted to looking ahead while he did his thing. I did some more calling, he did some more gobbling. Then he’d gobble again. And again. And again. To say he was fired up may well be an understatement. after 15 minutes I decided to chance it and turn around slowly using my fan I had from a previous year’s success story as partial cover. On hands and knees I got turned and repurposed the tree I had been using as a backrest into a shoulder rest, holding my fan up in front of my face and assessing my surroundings. Lots of thick brush, still can’t see him but…
He gobbled once more and I knew we were still on. From there it was nothing but a cat-and-mouse game with him gobbling routinely while pacing left and right, staying just out of sight through the undergrowth, begging me to follow him deeper into the forest, and me purring and calling hoping he’d come back to the open field. We engaged in the standoff for almost an hour, and I must have listened to him gobble 100 times if he gobbled once. I was getting extremely anxious and it felt like he was getting pretty nervous himself, so I laid off the call for a minute to gauge his reaction. He went roughly two minutes without making a sound, and then I caught just a glimpse of his body cutting through the trees, high tailing it the heck out of Dodge.
The next time I heard him gobble he was probably a quarter mile off through the woods back to the North and East of me and he wasn’t interested in coming back. Although it was disappointing not being able to bag him that day I still thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It’s always nice to get away for a half a day and spend some time in the woods. Lessons were learned, and Tommy Turkey won’t be so fortunate next time!
The Hunting Lodge 