While a hen making this call may be familiar to others, it was the first time I'd experienced it in over 25+ years of turkey hunting. The lone hen was only 20 yards away in a picked soybean field and came in around 8 a.m. to my gobble call. She gave very aggressive, loud, and short purrs followed by a yelp of equal effort. She did these at a rapid pace and non-stop for at least 4-5 minutes without a break. Her posture was very erect with her head popping from side to side, probably looking for me, the "gobbler". While she was doing this, from probably 200-300 yards a real gobbler sounded off and quickly closed the distance in very short order to what sounded like 100 yards. At this point, the hen continued her purring/yelp sequence, but reduced the volume. I though she would call him in and I'd fill my tag, but he stood his ground and she slowly worked her way to his position as he would gobble every minute or so. From my position, while I could clearly hear him, I never saw him. I heard him gobble as they moved away. Later, I tried to imitate her calling, but could not produce the intensity on my slate. With my mouth call, I could produce the volume and intensity, but not the consistent strong quality of her calling, especially the purr. It's something that I'm going to be working on with my mouth call. The Illinois season goes out on May 10th, so there's not much time to practice.
