Okay,...I'll give you the story of my Mississippi gobbler.
First morning our hosts split me and my buddy up. He went to one property and I went to another. I heard a single distant gobble at first light where I was, and moved in on him. Set up on the edge of a clearing bordering the swampy area of hardwoods where the gobbler had sounded off,...and waited. About fly-down, a couple of hens started up, sounding like they had flown down. and were back in the swamp perhaps a hundred yards or so.
One was pretty vocal, so I gave her a run of yelps back. She immediately cut me off with some yelping and cutting. I jumped on top of her with some of the same and for the next few minutes we were hammering back and forth at each other. Two other hens joined in and pretty soon I could tell they were making progress towards me. To make this first mornings events brief, I ended up calling those hens in two different times, but never saw a gobbler with them.
My buddy, on the other hand, heard three gobblers where he was at. Our hosts had pretty much told all of us that we would not be able to call birds in if we called aggressively to them, so my buddy took their word for it and stayed pretty quiet. ...So did the gobblers.
After comparing notes that evening, the two of us decided we would go back to the property he had hunted the first day and see if we could do anything with those gobblers. The next morning we were there at first light, but only one of the gobblers sounded off back in a swamp along a creek. We moved in that direction and set up and called, but could not get him to respond to us. Eventually we made a big loop out through the swamp and along the creek, setting up calling a bit in a few locations, but again never got a response.
We eventually ended up back where my buddy Steve had spent most of his time the day before. It was a good-looking spot that was kind of in the center of the property and about equidistant from the three areas where the gobblers he had heard the day before had roosted. It was a beautiful morning and we were a bit discouraged at the lack of responsiveness of the turkeys in the area, so we just decided to sit down under a nice cedar tree that had just the right amount of overhanging branches to create an effective natural blind.
we settled in, had a bite to eat and drink, called a bit, and then started chatting about whatever came to mind. We would talk for a while, and then both of us would call a little more, and listen in hopes of a response,...which, I might add, we were not at all optimistic about. We had been sitting there for about an hour, talking and laughing and making no attempt to be very quiet about it. Every five minutes or so, we would both call some, then listen for a few seconds, and then start talking again.
Steve was fiddle-farting with the calls he had with him and he dragged out a box call and just cranked on it to beat the band. In the middle of one of his yelp series on the box, I thought I heard a faint gobble. It was one of those "possible" gobbles that was so far off that you just say "no, it couldn't have been". I asked Steve if he had heard it, and he said "no, I didn't hear anything".
By this time, we were talking about heading back to camp, but we weren't in a hurry so we went on talking for a while, and then Steve picked up that box and cranked away on it again,...and again, I heard a sound that could have been a gobble,...and again Steve said he didn't hear it,...so I just dismissed it at my wishful thinking.
We were literally gathering up our stuff to head back to the truck when Steve grabbed that box call and cranked away on it one last time. GOBBLEOBBLEOBBLE! a clear gobble rang out from across the clearing in front of us along the creek about 200 yards away. We both looked at each other and said "holy Sh*t,...that was definitely a gobble!".
Things immediately went to "high alert" with both of us grabbing our guns and swinging around into position. For the next twenty minutes, Steve would crank on the box every few minutes,...and the gobbler would immediately answer from the creek. He moved to our left a ways, then back to the right,...answering every one of Steve's loud yelp series on that box call.
He must have been across the creek the way he was acting, but after about twenty minutes of going back and forth, Steve called to him again and the next gobble was clearly closer. He had crossed the creek and was coming.
The clearing between us and the creek had some areas of high weeds growing up just about gobbler-head high, so we could not see him approaching. Then, all of a sudden he came walking out of the weeds about sixty yards out. He was completely duped by that box call. He would walk a few steps, stand up tall, and look for the hen he heard.
At forty yards, he gave us one last gobble, and then began marching across in front of me. When he reached thirty yards I let him have it and he immediately went to the belly-up backstroke position.
You never saw two old sixty-something dudes get more excited than we were. We danced around and high-fived like a couple of giddy teenagers. We just kept telling each other,..."I can't believe that just happened"! Sometimes an old blind hog will find the acorn,...and sometimes two old blind hogs will find one....
the two old blind hogs themselves...with the "acorn"
