Last Saturday was youth day in Tennessee and me and my daughter Maggie headed out early. We went to one of the only "easy" places that I have to hunt here in the NF of Upper east Tennessee. We got there way to early, a hour before first light. We climbed up a holler and set up on the side of the holler hoping we were close to some roosting birds. At daybreak, I hooted twice and we heard absolutely nothing, then a little after fist light I scratched out a couple of tree yelps and thought I heard a gobble back towards the truck, about 400 yards away. My daughter has way better hearing than me so i was relying on her for distance and direction. The bird was gobbling a little on his own but seemed to get fired up after a fly down cackle from me. After that barrage of gobbles, he shut up. I heard a hen yelping in the same direction as the gobbler but that was it for about an hour. Nothing. Thinking that the birds had moved across the branch and up on the other side, Maggie and I decided to go back to the branch and up on the other ridge to see if we could locate them. Walking back down the holler, I was calling just a bit but nothing was answering. At the very bottom of the holler, we were slipping around the side of the ridge when I came upon a rise and stuck my head up and right in front of me was a hen who looked as surprised to see me as i was to see her. I immediately sat down in the middle of the trail and pulled Maggie down with me. I let out a excited cackle just hoping that the hen thought I was an odd looking turkey. At that moment, we were surprised and shaken by a thunderous gobble from 30 yards away just behind the hen. We were in the worst possible place imaginable to kill a bird. There was one giant Hemlock tree there and we scooted uo against it. I told Maggie to point the gun at the little rise and when the Gobbler came over it, to pour it to him. But he didn't, instead he hopped up in the laurel bushes in full strut, walked right by us at 20 yards gobbling his head off. The laurel thicket did not offer a shot as we could only get glimpses of him. I'm not sure how a turkey can get through a laurel thicket in full strut but they can. He walked around us and came out above us, still gobbling his head off. We slid around to the other side of the tree, and I instructed Maggie that now he would be coming down the trail towards us and the she was to pepper his head when he came around the bend. But he never did. Instead there were 6 hens that popped out of the laurel and the gobbler, trailing them all, came out about 50 yards away. They fed around for about 30 min. just a few yards out of gun range. We were in the wide open and could not move. So instead we got to watch and listen to a pretty cool sight. I tried every call I knew, but he was content with his hens and wasn't about to walk down there to me. My daughter and I were both very excited and after they fed on out the ridge, we actually tried to go up the ridge and go around them to cut them off but we never saw or heard them again. I feel it was a successful hunt even though we didn't get him. We know where he lives now.
