I finally got a chance to go Friday afternoon for a couple hours before the weather turned bad all weekend. When I got out of the truck the Turkeys were already gobbling at banging from a county truck at the top of the hill. That seemed like a pretty good omen. So I found a place on the canyon wall and started calling. About 15 minutes in, I had a nice tom come across, from behind me. He strutted at about 40 yards but needed to take 2 more steps to be in the clear. For them to be supposedly so dumb, some of those old birds are pretty witty. After several minutes of stale mate, and a conversation that reminds me of home (Baby, come over here. No Honey, I'm busy- You come over here. Well, but I asked you first) he went back across. After a few moments, I started calling again and whole place lit up from one end to the other. I felt surrounded. There were toms up the creek, across the creek and down the creek. I would call and I would hear a minute of solid gobbling. Anyway, that first old tom came back out, out of range of course, and crossed over to my side in stealth mode. I was watching for him to sneak up the side behind me again so I turned positions. This allowed a whole group of toms to flank me, from behind and the original direction I was facing. How do they freaking know?
Their decoys were still across the creek just inching their way in acting like they were interested, but not too interested. You know, playing it cool. I dang near jumped when these 4 turkeys started in about 5 yards behind me. I was finally able to find them out of the corner of my eye. It seemed like an eternity and they weren't moving. So I hatched a plan to roll and shoot. I however, didn't appropriately calculate the length of my gun, angle of desired path of movement, and the distance of the overhanging limbs. As my upper torso rolled to my left, my arms and shotgun didn't follow. It resulted in me finding myself momentarily starring around the side of a tree at 4 bewildered turkeys, and trying to figure out where my arms went. It was contorted to a point that I think I almost found my Zen. When it all registered in my brain, I recalculated a desired path of movement for my shotgun, but the turkeys had executed a well devised escape to the top of the canyon wall. I was then glad that no one else was with me to witness this humiliation. It had been the most sure thing in turkey hunting I have experienced, and I blew it. I had just whiffed a tee ball.
Apparently the turkey gods looked down and felt compassion on me. Not a lot of compassion, but a little compassion. The wise older tom in this bunch was touching down in the neighboring county, but the three young ones with him decided they still wanted to find the girl that was willing. They started gobbling again. I called and they came back to the rim and would peak over the edge. They would go to the left or to the right and peak down, but never walk back down. After many minutes of this, I decided it was time I went into stealth mode. I crawled up the canyon wall at the moments all 3 of them were behind vegetation. When I reached a point that was in range I let the first dude have it that came and stretched his neck out over the edge. When I went up to get him, the remaining two had only ran about 40 yards and stopped again. I could only figure, they were each thinking now their odds of getting the chick were even better.
He was young but seemed to have a pretty full beard.