Tom seemed suspicious of dekes!

[rustyi]

I posted a question last week about toms not coming all the way in and got a lot of great advice.  Thanks to all who  told me to play hard to get; it worked!  Sort of...

We went out again and roosted a few Friday night, so Saturday we knew right where to go.  Shortly after dawn we had two responding to our early morning tree yelps so we shut it down and called very rarely. We were in a short, narrow juniper lined canyon with a small clearing about 100x150 feet with quite a bit of sage brush but a small patch of grass on one edge.  We had two hen dekes in place in the grass.

Both toms coming in were coming from opposite directions, one from down the canyon and one from up the canyon.  After a little while, the one from up the canyon stopped all together.  But that was fine because the other was still coming. The next thing we knew he gobbled and was within range below us and to our left, but we could not see him because of the heavy timber and brush.  We just sat silent and perfectly still, shot guns in position.

We were sitting just above the edge of the brushy opening, about 5 to 10 fee up the side of the canyon wall, huddled up to a couple of big brushy junipers.  We also had a blind in front of us so we were very well hidden.  We then heard the tom behind us, circling around to get above the two hen dekes.   The hill side was fairly bare so we're convinced he was eyeing the dekes the whole time.  We're also totally convinced he did not see us. He came down to the top edge of the clearing, probably about fifty feet from the dekes and gobbled again, this time startling us because he was so close.  BUT AGAIN WE COULDN'T SEE HIM FOR A DOWNED JUNIPER BETWEEN US AND HIM!  We were steady as a rock and ready to take the safety off our shot guns.  We waited a minute or two wondering where he was when we heard him gobble about forty yards further up the canyon!

We're totally convinced he was suspicious of the dekes the way hey eyed them while circling from above and then getting to withing just a few feet of them before gobbling and taking off.  Any advice would again be greatly appreciated.

[guesswho]

I believe someone suggested not using the dekes in your last thread

I'd play it the same way again, less the deke's. 

[Trevor2]

Happened to me just yesterday morning. Gobbler stepped in the field in full strut and took two steps up to see my jake and started throwing that head side to side and nervous as can be. Two quick yelps from the Hooks Persuador diaphram was just enough to get him to raise that head and I squeezed one off. Sometimes they work and sometimes they dont.

[1iagobblergetter]

Sounds like you had him if you would have been set up different. If a gobbler gets within a couple feet of my decoys he gets dead. Look at your surroundings when you setup and how it will work out if they come in from different directions.

[rustyi]

Yeah guesswho, someone did suggest that .  Lesson learned.

[Basser69]

From what I have noticed when using decoys, once a tom makes eye contact with the hens he is leaving and expects the "hens" to follow him. This is the main reason I will only use decoys while hunting fields (with them facing me)  and never use them in the woods.

[furtracker]

This is why I'm not a big fan of decoys.  I would rather them look for me.