You hear that? If you said no, then you heard what I've been hearing in the woods. Absolutely nothing.
I hunted hard for 5 days straight. Morning hunts, afternoon hunts, and evening hunts. One day I stayed out 12 hours. Yet not one gobble. Last Thursday was my first day to hunt due to work, and I got out to a likely looking green field at 5pm. I made it about 100 feet away from my truck before seeing my first turkey. I walked over a little rise and up to a hen that was feeding about 50 feet away from me. I managed to keep her from seeing me by ducking through the woods and continuing further into the field. The area I was hunting was a 50 acre green field bordered on the west and south sides by the same creek, so I went to the southwest corner thinking there would likely be a roost site nearby. After setting up and calling for a while, I called up 3 hens on their way to roost. They came within 5 feet of me walking into the woods, so I at least knew my calling skills and camouflage were good to go. So far things were looking good!
The next 4 days were spent in the same general area, sometimes hunting along the creek and sometimes along some ridges that feed down into these big green fields. I kept calling up hen after hen, but neither saw nor heard a gobbler.
Sunday morning late I found a well used strut zone actually down in a creek bed. That evening I set up about 10 feet away, and had 3 hens come in a roost. Thinking a gobbler surely must be roosted nearby, I quietly extracted myself and decided to come back Monday morning. A few hours later I was already waking up and headed back out to the same spot. In the pre-dawn chill, I walked down to the creek and slid down the bank. The creek has about 8 foot banks with reeds growing heavily on the sides, so I sat down in the sand with my back to the bank. It was actually the most comfortable place I'd sat down in a week. With the strut zone 20 feet away from me and the roost trees beyond that, I sat quietly and waited for daylight.
Just when I could see the ground I heard a fly down cackle, and readied my shotgun. A hen glides effortlessly towards me and lands within 10 feet of me. I slide the safety off and wait for the tom to hit the ground behind her. And wait. And wait. The tom never shows up. The hen pecks around the strut zone for a while then takes off towards the big green field. I waited another 15 minutes, then tracked the hen out into the green field. By now she was 400 yards away from me. I believe she was headed to either sit on a nest or lay an egg.
Since that had turned out so dismally, I decided for the rest of the day to do a little fishing and hang out at home since I had to work the next 48 hours on the ambulance. My dad and I go to a pond that adjoins a green field that is about 1 1/2 miles south of the field I hunted that morning. The fishing was pretty good, and after about an hour we decide to leave. After sitting at the back of the truck shooting the crap for a bit, we get into the truck and start to back out, almost running over four 2 year old jakes. Ok, they were 50 feet behind us, but they still surprised us. My dad throws me a shotgun and hits the box call, and they cut loose a gobble that shook the hills. Being in shorts and a t shirt I decided not to pursue them through the woods. This was at 4:30 in the afternoon of all times.
At least I finally got to hear a gobble. Tomorrow I'll be in near that pond in a one man blind for sure with my decoy spread. Maybe I'll get to hear a gobble followed by a boom?
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