Got One!

This morning I set up in a spot I had never hunted before. Heard a gobble and responded with a few clucks and a short yelp and decided to do nothing for a while. Two birds arrived and one caught an arrow in the beard. I'll tell the complete tale soon but I had to share this spoiler with you all.

An Uncooperative Longbeard

The first half of each spring season has more the feel of a detailed scouting walk then actual hunts. What I mean by this is many of the early season hunts are more learning experiences then shooting events. The set-up is different than originally scouted; the birds move in from the left end of the field and not the center; the birds were just passing through on their way to better feeding and no longer hang out in this patch of woods. In short, early on in the season I seem to get it all wrong.

By the time the turkey’s habits and patterns (if you can call them habits and patterns) are teased out from the general randomness of these critters, they all go quiet. What is certain is the gobbling which began in the trees and worked its way with the toms to the ground has been reduced to tree gobbling only. Once the feet begin making tracks the gobbling stops. Within a week the birds aren’t even gobbling in the trees anymore. Why and how every bird within hearing distance stops making a sound is flummoxing and a bit amazing.  I can understand or at least get my head around birds in a particular location staying silent but not everything in a particular valley or ridgeline. You’d think some ambitious jake who has yet to see any hen action would sound off.

By the second week of the season my hunting has been pretty repetitive. Find a good bow friendly spot (enough room to draw the bow with enough cover to hide the movement) and arrive by 4:30. Set some dekes at 15 and another at 20 yards from the sit. Now my ranges are known. When the time on my watch can be seen without the backlight or when there have been a few consistent gobbles I begin calling. A few soft clucks and maybe a quiet yelp or two. If there is a response to the calls my reply will have a bit more volume and slightly quicker tempo. The extra volume and tempo are how I try to sound “excited and willing” but for all I know my up-tempo and louder calling might be telling the toms to run. After an hour with no action boredom sets in and my legs are slightly numb from sitting for the past 90 minutes. Time for a walkabout to spy a few fields and head back to the house to schedule domestic chores and get off to work. All in all, my hunts have been a nice walk in the morning.

The third Saturday of the season and Nate, my 11 y.o. son, asks to tag along. We repeat the afore mentioned scenario and head back towards home by skirting a swamp. The bugs have yet to hatch and the leaves are just beyond swelled buds. The sightlines through the woods are still long. Soon the understory will occlude the waist to head height views and the ferns will block seeing anything not taller then a grown man’s knees.

Just as we cross the brook I take a quick look around. “Nate, is that a bear?” My finger directs his gaze to a large black lump about 100 yards to the north.

“I don’t think so it looks like a stump.” Then it moves revealing the orange radio collar as the black lump transforms into a black bear. “Oh yea, it’s a bear. What to we do?”

“Just look for cubs and if there aren’t any we should be fine. I don’t think it knows we’re here.”

No cubs so we watch the bear sit and look around before continuing its walk. It moves north, we head home to the south. This was the first bear Nate has ever seen while spending time in the woods. The sighting made the hunt a worthwhile adventure.

After a late morning lunch there are still three hours available to chase turkeys. Trigger time in Vermont is half an hour before sunrise until noon. I’m not too hopeful about finding a late morning tom. The woods have been devoid of turkey calls and my chances of interacting with a tom will be more random luck then echo location.

The three-mile walk on logging roads is a long loop through a stand of about 1,000 acres. Most of it isn’t accessible by vehicles. The sun is bright and the temps are in the mid 40s. My walk consists of moving a few hundred yards until I find decent cover and use the JL boxcall to send a few yelps into the woods. If nothing calls back after a minute or two I keep moving. For the next 90 minutes this pattern is repeated with each calling session slightly less enthusiastic.

Eventually boredom sets in and rather then stop I begin using the scratchbox to play the lead as I cover classic 70’s rock anthems like Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven;”

 AC/DC’s “Back in Black;” and Kiss “Detroit Rock City.” Still no response from the toms but I really don’t care. I’m tired and hungry.

JL Custom Turkey Calls packages its calls with a basic instruction sheet on reproducing clucks, purrs, yelps, cuts and using a rubber band to center the lid to reproduce a gobble. To gobble with the box call the band holds the paddle to the box and applies light pressure. Next,  the caller either holds the box or paddle while repeatedly shaking the call. The gobble imitation is pretty good. The logging road drops between a large hill and small knoll just a bit longer than ½ mile from home. With no fear of chasing anything off my boxcall gobbling becomes a competition between holding the padle and shaking the box or holding the box and shaking the paddle.

The experiment has been going almost nonstop for two or three minutes when the woods exploded with a loud and presumably close gobble emanating from an actual turkey. I froze to look around and carefully placed the boxcall into my pocket. The bow carry sling was still attached and was removed as I scanned the terrain for a hiding spot. There was none so I scrambles a few yards off the road and gained a few yards of elevation putting me dead level with the top of the knoll. The hillside was steep enough for me to sit or almost lean against and the hemlock branches were far enough above me as to not interfere with the bow.

Dumb luck had a mouth call set like a good jag of chew between my left cheek and gums. The scare of jumping a close tom and sending him packing dried my mouth and the call stuck to my tongue. Another old logging road moved up the hill to the left and the well traveled logging road had three nice shooting lanes with drawing cover radiating from my location.

My first attempt at a yelp to assist the still hidden bird in locating the invading tom and his date was a complete bust. It wasn’t a yelp but more of a raspy choke. The tom bit hard and responded with a harsh gobble which came from the end of the knoll.

The top of his fan breached the edge of the knoll and the bird stepped onto the road in full strut.  Unfortunately there was no shot.  Most of the tom was behind a network of low hobblebush and broken pine limbs. Not certain and arrow would make it through I sucked on my tongue trying to pull up a bit of moisture to release the call reeds.

When the tom spun to display I caught sight of the beard and spurs (6-8” rope with 1”  hooks). The release was set into the D-loop and the bow set vertically resting one cam on my thigh. The shooting lanes were separated by large hemlocks and would provide good cover to draw the bow.  While the tom was looking away I managed a quiet ”come hither” cluck intending to move the bird  two feet and into the road. His fan fell and wings retracted to his body. The bird moved up the knoll through the underbrush and began scanning the hillside for this elusive hen.

The tom is only twenty yards afar and shooting it is a dead level chip shot with one problem. There is an awning of branches across the road low enough to interfere with the arcing flight of the arrow. I still have no shot so time to sit and wait for the bird to leave the knoll and head up the hill to find this seductive hen.

In Tom Kelly’s book,  “A Fork in the Road,” the master recommends setting up so the hunter has a clear view of any road and to establish a spot to have a shot into both roads at any intersection. But dumb luck I have this and it should only be a matter of time before I can verify Mr. Kelly’s wisdom.

The longish beard gobbles and struts on the top of the knoll. He has center stage and puts on a fantastic show. The turkey is close enough I can hear the fan pop open and wingtips tickle the leaves. After each strutting event, the bird preens itself and the shaking feathers leave a rustling sound in the late morning air.

When the bird turns his back I can glance at the watch on my release hand. The small bumps of rock and forest floor debris which I hadn’t noticed when I scrambled in, now pressure my rear end in a rather uncomfortable way. I’ve been sitting motionless for thirty minutes. The arrogance of the tom expecting the hen to some to him is second in amazement to his ability to just sit and wait. As the pain in my butt grew, my patients thinned.

At forty-five minutes the bird descended the knoll back towards the logging road. Each step closer to the road kicked my heart rate back up a notch. My thumb felt for the hook of the release to be sure the D-loop was still engaged. In season’s past, I rushed the shot by skipping the waypoints of the shot process causing the arrow to miss the target. .As the tom stepped up to the first 25 yard shooting lane I ran through the shot checklist: Anchor at the jaw; curl the finger over the trigger to the last knuckle; elbow in line with the arrow flight; align the sight housing and peep; lower the elbow to release the shot.

The two logging roads came together at a very acute angle on the steep hillside. The space between the roads was occupied by a band of  incompetent rock and broken stone. Which I knew was there but was unable to see from my current position.  Given the choice between scaling the fragmented defile of broken and crumbly rock or an easy stroll up a fairly well defined and graded road, the choice, for a human, is a no brainer. The easy footing of the road wins. For a strutting tom turkey showing off to a sexy hen, only the miserable path will enhance his aversion to danger.  The bird managed to skirt the easy shot and remained out of view only giving away his position by gobbling at the top of the rise. “Rats!” was my audible reaction (we all know it wasn’t rats). Was I busted and the bird was toying with me? Was the bird in need of a bit of dangerous fun hence it scaled the path of most resistance? Doesn’t matter. My shot opportunity was gone.

I snuck up the hill scratching away the leaves hoping to imitate a love struck hen chasing the masculine hunk up the hill and cover my moves. The bird stayed forty yards ahead of me gobbling at every bench in the terrain. At noon, the end of legal trigger time, I looked up to see the tom backlit by the sun. His red waddles made transparent by the strong noontime light. The body a silhouette with one wing extended while the arching middle feather displayed in my direction.

More Hunting Stories on the Way

Hello Readers,
Sorry for the gap in the posting. There has been an unexpected bit of good fortune at the house. My daughter has been recruited to play soccer at a private school. This came out of the parking lot of left field it was so unanticipated.

The application process has been quite busy writing letters and entrance essays. Not just my daughter. The school also wants something from me and my wife. We have one small laptop at the house which is used by everyone so keyboard time has been limited.

In the past week there have been some awesome hunting adventures to share with you.  I'll get them up soon and thanks for the patients with this.

Be well, Kevin

The First Great Hunt of the Season.

The seventh day of the 2015 spring season fell on a Thursday. This day was the first great hunting day of the season.

6:30 Wednesday morning when driving towards home after a whole unsatisfying hunt, I spotted three toms displaying in the field by the tree. The location is a fifteen-minute walk from the house traversing fields with a few strips of woodland to wade through. After work, the dog needed a good walk so heading to the tree to see if any branches needed trimming was the mission.

For the past two years I’ve been in grad school with the intention of finding a better paying career. Hasn’t quite worked out as planned. To earn some cash I continue to work as a landscaper and fine gardener. Any holes being cut along field edges and beneath pine trees are always pruned in with cut made for visual appeal in addition to good horticultural practice. While the dog sniffed around in the grass, my ten minutes removed a few buckthorn and honeysuckle saplings along with some deadwood to fashion a bowhunter sized grotto. Judging distance in dim light is often difficult.  A few of the cutoffs were pressed into service demarcating 15, 20, and 25 yards.

Thursday at 4:45 the dekes were set at 20 yds. The calls were properly arranged on my leg; one arrow on the nock and another set to the side in case a second shot presents itself. Time to just sit and enjoy the increasing light and wait for the show to begin.

By 5:00 there had been a few far off gobbles but nothing sounding close enough for a response. When a gobble came from the next field over a bit of second guessing set in about my location. Too late to move so just sit it out.

The crack of sticks coming from the woods to my right caught my attention bringing me from near boredom to pie eyed. Moving my eyes to the limit in order to peek with minimal movement preceded a slow turn of the head, my eyes scanning the trees. A short flash of white gave the deer away.  Two does moved with caution along the woods line stopping to bob their heads before dipping them down to nibble on the new sprouts just breaking the from beneath the soil. The wind didn’t betray my location and the deer approached the decoys moving past me at 15 yards. For once I could smell the deer without being detected. The decoys have lured in more deer than turkeys.

The deer left the field and the only sounds were songbirds and the breeze moving the swollen buds causing the branches to rub against each other. A crow flew overhead cackling to its mates. A few geese passed above. Never saw them but heard the reverberation of honks. My watch read 6:15 and if something wasn’t dead in fifteen minutes it was time to break camp and head home to begin the workday.

A faint yelp made it over the rise from the swamp into the field. The double sided cedar scratchbox responded with a few clucks and cuts. Several hens responded. My calling cut them off. With the clock working against me trying to sweet talk any following toms didn’t seem a good bet. Angering the hens seemed like a good play. If the girls come looking for a fight just maybe the boys will follow them in.

The other side of the cedar scratchbox has a bit higher pitch. Drawing it across the walnut peg gave a loud  series of raspy yelps which were cut off by the hens closing in on my hide out. A few minutes of frantic yelping brought two hens into the field. The handheld calls were placed into my boot top to keep them available and quiet. The release hook slid through the D-loop with my finger pressing the backside of the trigger blade to avoid an unintentional disconnect. The bow rotated from the horizontal resting position on my thighs to the vertical alignment needed to draw and shoot.

The hens moved across the field towards the dekes; their heads scanned from side to side. Yelp yelp, in rapid succession, short pause, yelp yelp, short pause; this pattern just kept repeating itself.  An occasional cluck broke the pattern but the hens kept up this banter of one to three short yelps.

Being female it was illegal to shoot these birds during the spring season. Some insect began boring into the exposed forehead just above the head net. My instinct was to swat the bug but fear of getting busted and sending the hens into alarm mode overrode the need to stop the bug from biting me. Slow movement might be okay. The move to my forehead was deliberate and steady.. The hens were looking in my direction when my index finger popped the insect. The hens continued yelping and moving my way.

When they stopped a few yards from the decoys my watch read 6:30. I had to leave soon and with no evidence of approaching toms the bow was lifted into a shooting position. The bowstring remained still as my draw arm pantomimed coming to anchor. While at “full draw” the hens shook out their feathers adding a bit of rustling to the cacophony of the morning. They didn’t spook validating my 3-D camo and technique.

With the same deliberation as squishing the bug on my forehead, my foot located several dried sticks shed from the pine tree. Snapping them made the hens nervous and soon they made a purposeful escape back into the woods.

Why was this hunt so successful? The camo works fantastically well allowing me to draw on birds only 12 yards away. Listening to the hens communicate was insightful. I hadn’t realized the yelp was common vernacular. Until this mo hunt it was assumed the yelp was a longer series and used only in the vicinity if toms. My odds of becoming a harvester this spring had just gone up.

Being a Turkey Hunter

After eight days, the 2015 Spring turkey season can be summed up as interesting but not spectacular. During each day of hunting there has been some form of encounter with a turkey. The interaction might have been a simple gobble or sighting to an all out yelping match with a flock of hens. There has been a few disappointments balanced by heart pounding elations Not a shot has bee fired or even contemplated.

About a third of the way through each season there is always a moment when I wonder why there is a need to keep getting up from a sound sleep at 3:30 AM in order to sit in the woods with great expectations of shooting a bird. Hearing gunshots on opening day makes me smile; the turkey hunting brethren is having enough success to break a shot. By Day 8 the sound of distant gunshots serves to selfishly make me mad.  Someone besides me has one less tag. When I finally do connect, nobody is going to actually hear the twang of my bowstring.  Metaphysically, the disruption of the turkey hunting force will be detected by everyone sitting in wait for a turkey to present itself.

This season has been exclusively marked encounters with hung up birds my frustration is being projected upon the once highly coveted and revered turkey. As the season goes forth without any shooting opportunities the language becomes modified with some expletive preceding some euphemistic phrase for describing turkeys. If the shotless trend continues, the epitaphs will revert to a simple profane modifier.  Any shooting opportunity clears the slate and the beloved turkey is once again held in high regard.

My circadian rhythms have begun to adjust to the early start to the day. My sleep patterns have not so much adjusted as shifted closer to the dawn. The alarm clock has not disturbed my slumber for a few days. My wife appreciates the ability to wake up on time without the use of the alarm. When I leave the bed she shifts towards the middle obviously enjoying the extra space to spread out.

Entering the middle third of the season my self-image as a “hunter” is well established. As a matter of fact I am an excellent hunter, a successful hunter, and experienced hunter by strict definition. Various dictionaries define hunting as follows: 

1. to chase or search for (game or other wild animals) for the purpose of catching or killing.

2. to pursue aggressively in order to capture.

3. to search thoroughly; scour.

Please notice how nowhere in the definition of hunt is there any mention of actually capturing, taking or harvesting game animals.

Hunting in and of itself is a very enjoyable experience. Locating turkeys is a small victory, calling them closer is another victory. A successful harvest is tangible proof of finding and luring skill. Each season I start out as a turkey hunter and evolve into a turkey harvester. Every season there is a seat on the emotional rollercoaster of chasing the #&%*^#$% turkey. 

Day 2 and Getting a Guillotine Style Broadhead to Fly.

Shooting during spring season end at noon here in Vermont. Opening Day was eventful but not yet finished. For the past two weeks, a lot of time has been spent trying to get the Magnus Bullheads to hit where they have been aimed. Mechanical broadheads and fieldpoints hit the target together. The bareshaft tune is also very good so the errant flyers must be some issue with the arrow spine or fletching.  It is possible to tune the bow to the Bullhead but shooting field points becomes not possible without a retune. During the season I try to shoot to keep in good form and retuning beyond a few clicks of the windage knob is too much. More time will be spent setting the bow for a specific point then actually shooting.

In an effort to get the Bullheads to fly correctly a variety of arrow spines and fletching combinations were tried. Nothing really worked well. Every arrow impacted to the left of the point of aim (POA). I shoot left-handed and the thought is the spine is too stiff.

The head bent just above the threads and one of the blades is broken. I think the off center contact didn't dissipate the impact force along the shaft so it also bent and failed under the applied load. The broken shaft pieces are in the back ground of the photo.

In addition to the Bullheads, I had the local bowshop (Kevin’s Custom Arrows in Vershire, VT) order a package of Muzzy M.O.R.E. heads. The Muzzy heads have the advantage of folding the blades in for storage and then folding out for shooting. Maybe the Muzzys will shoot? The first Muzzy was loaded onto a 400 spine GoldTip arrow. A fiberfill pillow is an awesome broadhead target. The arrows have all become entangled into the fibers and don’t pass through the pillow. The pillow is hung from an A-frame allowing it to swing helping to dissipate the energy of the impact. The arrow flew about 18” left and one blade impacted the post of the A-frame bending the broadhead and shattering the shaft. The pictures tell the story better then the words. Not sure if the Muzzy is any better then the Bullhead. I only took one shot and destroyed the arrow.

The idea with the guillotine style heads was upping the odds of a kill when I just barely miss the birds neck. My intention had been to use technology to buy performance. Turns out I should just practice more and improve the archer.

On Day 2 of the 2015 season my son Nate came along. We met my hunting buddy Steve at 4:30 and drove to a spot which had proven worthwhile in the fall. We setup and sat hearing only a few far off gobbles. Temps were in the very low 40F range and by 6:30 we were all cold and changed to a more active run and gun tactic. An hour’s walkabout only produced nothing. The only calls we heard were generated by other hunters so we altered our track back to the car to give them a wide berth.

Nate and I headed home to eat and warm up. Hunting does not give us a free pass on weekend chores and before heading out for a more local walk we cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed the rugs, and began putting away the skis stored on the porch for easy winter use.

The local run and gun produced a few gobbles but nothing worth filling space with.   We had a response from calling but each response was quieter and quieter. The church bells rang out noon so we unloaded Nate’s shotgun and headed towards home.

Nate asked about setting up and finding a good spot to hide. We experimented a bit with a camera in order to examine how each of us look with the idea of learning to "see" from a turkey's point of view. 

So far this season we have had encounters but nothing within shooting range. There are still 28 days of the season.

Where's Kevin?

The red circle.

Closer up and the eyes are visible.

Opening Day Spring 2015

Opening day, 3:30 AM and I’m tired, unable to sleep since getting up to pee at 1:30. Excited isn’t the half of it. Being nervous about taking the one-mile walk through the woods, alone and at night seems juvenile. Hard to admit it, but at 49 years old there is still a bit of childhood leftover tension about the dark. Not scared, just a bit apprehensive.

There is also the endless thought loop of opening day jitters. Did I choose the rights calls; the best arrow and broadhead combination; did I practice enough and with enough variety to cover the sit-down kneel-down and other oddball shots which might present themselves. My evening has been filled with doubt and trying to convince myself to be confident in the prep work. No amount of self-hypnosis will flush these thoughts from my head and allow sleep to replace the cerebral inertia from the week leading up to opening day.

Before going to bed an effort was made to collect everything needed to start the spring season.  This pile of stuff on the kitchen table flows onto the floor and contains the cornerstone items. Bow and arrow; leafy camo suit; calls; folding chair; dekes; and warm underclothes. The mortar bits allowing the cornerstones to function sit on the kitchen stool: release, chalk, binos, bug dope (ticks are bad this season), license and tags, water, and a snack complete the pile; or so I hope.

There is the intent of leaving the house at 4:00 to be in the setup by 4:30 expecting the gobble show to begin just about 5:15. Stepping out the door at 4:30 makes the walk to the fields more of a slow jog. A light panic sets in as trees in the fields become more defined. Maybe the sun is coming up or maybe my eyes have finally adjusted to the darkness.  Maybe I shouldn’t have had the second cup of tea, Maybe I should have…… the list is long and reciting it helps pass the time.

Last evening while trying, unsuccessfully, to roost a few toms, a small pile of evergreen branches was left to mark 15 yards from the spot to sit in front of the dead hemlock. Set the dekes, open the chair and sit still for a few moments listening to the woods. If the planning is good, my arrival at the setup will coincide with the nighttime creatures going to sleep and the few moments of quiet before the daytime critters awaken for the day.

Time to nock an arrow and set the calls on my leg in preparation for the hunt. The dekes are dark silhouettes against the lighter color of the dead grass laid flat by the winter’s snow. Gobble, gobble, gobble. The silence of the pre dawn is shattered by the tom’s call. The watch requires the backlight to read the time. 4:47, the show has begun a bit early. My heart pounds in my chest as visions of filling my tags before the sun can cast a shadow  race through my head. Reality sets in. There is no way I can shoot at anything for at least thirty minutes. Legal shooting time isn’t the issue. The problem is seeing my target should the eager sounding tom arrive to court the plastic hen.

This is a first for me. Hoping and wishing the gobbling bird to hang out and not come closer. My fingers are itching to run the cedar scratchbox. It’s been eleven months since I last ran a call with intent to entice in a gobbler and it’s a great effort to keep the striker peg and soundboard apart. Some old timer once told me to start calling when I was able to read the time on my watch without using a light. The tom keeps bellowing out one gobble after another and the watch face remains dark. At 5:08 I convince myself the numbers are visible and the first cluck opens the season. Three clucks later the tom gobbles cutting me off. The bird knows where I am and the correct thing to do is stop calling and allow the tom to find me. Not a chance. Calling and interacting with the prey is a big part of the fun and it’d be disappointing for my season to end ten minutes and three clucks after it began. A quiet purr, a few cuts break into a building yelp. My call is again cut off by the tom imagined to be an old bluehead with a ragged beard and spurs almost two inches long. My scratchbox keeps moving filling the morning with enthusiastic yelps.  The return gobble is...a hen yelp? No, lots of hen yelps.

My exuberant calling alerted the local harem to my overtures. They respond en mass trying to keep their sultan from expanding his breeding stock. Now my ire has been raised and there is no way I’ll be outcalled. The scratchbox is exchanged for the shortbox and the race to see who can get the volume to 11 is on. The tom must be excited because the gobbles keep coming and while enthusiastic, the volume can’t drown out the hen yelping match.  To keep pace with the hens and with great hope to exaggerate the size of the invading flock, three different species of wood striker pegs are staked into my left hand. The double sided cedar scratchbox in my right and the scratcher begins dancing from peg to peg to peg. Each species of wood creates a different sound and the chorus of seamless transition from call to call quiets the actual hens. Unfortunately, it also chases off the gobbler or he was carted away all love struck and pie eyed. My version is the bird was hustled away so while I was unable to sink an arrow into its neck, the previous twenty minutes were a lot of fun and I sent those hens packing.

The next move was unintentional but worked very well. There had been one tom responding to my calls so where were the rest of them and the jakes which always seem to lurk along the perimeter of the flock? These lurking k]jakes watching the hens like a teenaged boy gawks at his pretty neighbor. The awkward teen too afraid to say hello when the old man is around, but when he leaves there is an opportunity to woo her.

After my heart rate returned to the pre-yelp contest level I took the applewood scratchbox and let out a few clucks and a purr.  Instant response from at least three gobblers. Ah yes, the lurking teens were making their way towards my setup. My setup which was all wrong for the direction of the approaching birds.

For the life of me, why any effort is spent on the “right” setup is flummoxing. Whatever setup is scouted and determined to be the best is never correct. The lurkers have circled around behind be putting a large and thick stand of hemlock between us. My hope is they spot the dekes and charge past me on the way to the alluring plastic hen 15 yards from my ideal setup.

We call back and forth for the next twenty five minutes the lurkers circumnavigating my spot but never closing the radius. In order for my day to work a bird needs to be dead or chased off by 6:30 in order to make it to work on time. It is now 6:25 and time for the big move. The boxcall paddle is held in place by a rubber band to loosely apply pressure to the box and return it to center on its own. The box is shaken side-to-side causing it to “gobble.” The hope is to pick a fight and draw them in all randy and jacked up looking to steal the new flock of hens. The first gobble sounds a bit quieter. My response is a few yelps on the scratchbox. The response is quieter still. My desperate move produces nothing but a gobble and yelp free wooded area. Two hours ago the fear was tagging out after a few clucks and a purr. Now my dekes are being stuffed into the bag, the chair folded up, the arrows placed back into the quiver and my tail tucked between my legs for the walk of shame back to the house.

There really is no shame; quite the contrary. The morning was a smashing success. The first walk in the dark went well so my confidence is better. The homegrown calls did arouse a few gobblers, and I had the discipline to get to work on time.  There are twenty-nine days left of the spring season to fill my tags. The calling and chasing the birds is really the fun part of spring season and had I tagged out as easily as my imagination had made it my fun would have been cut short. Being an average hunter does have its benefits.