I really got my hopes up at first. Walking in right at daybreak this morning, I paused near the corner of a cow pasture to get out my owl hooter and before I could blow it one gobbled from the roost no more than 75 yards from me. I found a nice set-up tree on the other side, about a hundred yards from the location of the gobbling, with just the right amount of brush in front, then went out and set a jake decoy in a grassy strip between this field and the adjacent one. Hustling back to my tree in the pre-dawn light I tripped over a tangle of barbed wire from an old fence, and went sprawling head first. Didn't hurt anything, but broke my fall by planting my left hand, wrist, wristwatch, and coat sleeve squarely in this pile of cow manure, fresh and green from no earlier than yesterday. Fortunately I had my wet wipes and they came in handy as I slunk back to my tree.
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The gobbler gobbled a few more times, as did another one roosted near him. After one of my yelps was answered I shut up and waited. The gobblers went quiet and I eased the safety off. Heard a couple more gobbles, from the ground, in the woods, getting farther away and not answering me any more.
My only subsequent interaction with turkeys came about 2 hours later, just before the rain chased me back to the truck. It was a hen in the woods across the field, answering my periodic, forlorn yelping with some angry sounding cutting. I couldn't see her, but I'm pretty sure she was standing on one foot, the other raised in my direction with just the middle toe extended to let me know I'm number one.
