"I'd rather be lucky than good" came true at noon today. After setting up my jake and hen decoys at 5:30 a.m., I heard four different gobblers, but only one within a couple hundred yards. As expected, he flew down and went away with some hens, gobbling every 15-30 minutes or so until around 9 a.m. when all went silent. I'd decided to leave at 11 a.m. but a somewhat distant gobble at 10:55 kept me seated. I got no responses from him, so I decided to leave at 11:30. He gobbled again at 11:25, but no closer. About 15 minutes later, a series of raspy hen yelps came from about 100 yards behind me, the opposite direction from the last gobble. Hoping to call in the hen and have a tom come along, I began to return the hen's calls with some aggression to which the hen replied with zeal. After a few minutes of this "tennis match" and much to my surprise, two gobblers came running in to the calling/decoys and I dropped one at 20 yards. A few minutes later I was surprised to hear a familiar voice as footsteps came from the direction of the zealously calling hen. It was one of my friends who had sneaked toward the original hen yelping (me!) and we had each been trying to call in the other without knowing that the other was there. Evidently, all of this hen aggression whipped up some excitement with the two silent gobblers causing them to dash in, looking for the two hot hens only to find a load of #5 awaiting for one of them. Had I left at 11 or 11:30 or my buddy not been there with each of us trying to call in the other, I'd have gone home empty handed. This is certainly one time that I'd rather be lucky than good!
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