Late gobblers are the easiest

To make matters even worse, the last day of this year’s season falls on Mother’s Day. What many of us wouldn’t give for a turkey hunting wife or mother this year.

But there is hope for the untagged masses.

In my experience, the end of turkey season is always more productive than the beginning. Consider the circumstances, and this makes sense.

When turkey season starts, the woods are still lacking foliage and the fields are not yet overgrown. By May, however, leaves have emerged, wheat fields are knee high, and weeds have consumed fields yet to be planted.

Birds and hunters can no longer see across fields or through the woods, making it necessary to take a much closer look to confirm or rule out a potential mate or combatant.

Foliage also muffles sound and conceals movement. Hunters can set up closer to birds without alerting them, and call from a much closer position.

But what if the hens are all bred by now? Won’t that end the mating cycle and make it harder to call a gobbler?

No.

In fact, most hens are bred and have laid their eggs by the end of Indiana’s hunting season. But that is a good thing.

After a hen is bred, she separates herself from other birds and hides in dense cover to lay her eggs. She then remains mostly secluded while she incubates her eggs. She essentially takes herself off the market.

Trouble is, gobblers don’t have an on/off switch, and they continue looking for hens to breed well after most of them have disappeared.

Toms that were henned-up two weeks ago are likely roosting and traveling alone now. Many that would not fall for a decoy or call at the beginning of the season are complete suckers for anything even remotely resembling a female right now.

Old Tom’s last-minute, desperate search for one last hen has served me well over the year, and this year was no exception.

By May 1, I had only called in one gobbler on my Indiana farm. It was a monster that came gobbling and drumming, and quickly closed the distance until he stood just five yards from the blind.

I didn’t have a weapon, however. It was opening day of youth season, and my 11-year-old son was the shooter. It was the first gobbler he had ever seen, and I made the mistake of whispering into his ear as the bird approached.

“That is the biggest tom I’ve ever seen. Don’t miss!”

When my son swung the gun, the bird must have seen or heard him at the close range and he ran back over a creek bank. He was out of gun range before a shot was taken.

It was great fun for both of us, but once regular season opened, that bird and any others were nowhere to be found. I saw a couple hens, but no toms.

Until May 1, when the big guy reappeared.

Probably because it had been raining for two days, the morning revealed no gobbles within earshot of my chosen location. I nestled against a big tree in my rain gear, anyway, determined to sit all day on the off chance a bird would visit the clover field I chose to hunt.

Every 20 minutes, I stood and called in three directions, directing my yelps, cuts and gobbles down into the dense ravines that bordered the 20-acre field.

After an hour, I was surprised by a single raucous gobble across the field from my position. In minutes a bird appeared 100 yards away, but he stood his ground, unwilling to approach my hen and gobbler decoys.

After 15 agonizing minutes, he turned to walk back into the woods. When he turned, I gave hive four soft yelps. This got his interest, and he started skirting the edge of the field in my direction. I waited until be was 20 yards away, and let him have it.

Upon inspection, I believe it was the same big bird I had called in for my son a couple weeks earlier.

It is likely he never left the farm, but had too many hens to care about my calls until May, when he was finally alone. The fact that he responded and came to a call in the pouring rain, says something about how desperate he must have been.

The bird my son graciously left for me to tag had an 11-inch beard, 1-inch spurs, and weighed a whopping 28 pounds!