Pennsylvania Game News - May 2022 - 19

For Better or For Worse
For better or for worse, this could have been over almost immediately, hours ago.
Not long after sunrise, a string of turkeys in the distance began working across a soon-to-be
planted field. There was at least one big gobbler in the group, and I scratched out a series of yelps
on my box call to make my presence known.
The turkeys didn't appear interested, and if my previous hunts here were any indication, none of
them would be coming in. So I changed things up, pushed 50 yards deeper into the woods and out
of sight, then headed the birds' direction to circle back and set up closer to them.
I hadn't fully settled into my new spot before a gobble exploded from the area I just left.
A gobbler had come looking for me, but I no longer was there.
While I was kicking myself for leaving the spot that, at this moment, was the center of the action,
I wasn't sure whether I'd misplayed things or played them just right. I still was only about 200 yards
from the gobbler, and he'd already proved willing to cover that distance to check out calls.
Plus, if I'd have held my ground at the first spot, and the gobbler would have dropped in as he did
from behind and slightly uphill, he might well have busted me before I got a chance.
But at least it would have been over, which now - hours and hundreds of gobbles later - was far
from the case.
The gobbler had entered the field with some jakes, one of which appeared just after I set up in
the new spot. But as I sat there, back to a wide tree, he saw something he didn't like and scurried
downhill past me, about 30 yards away.
That cleared the runway for the gobbler. I called to announce my changed position.
He gobbled. And as he let loose his next, and another, it was obvious he was closing in, making
his march through the same woods I'd come through, below the field.
I waited in silence as his approach continued, then as it headed back the other direction. Soon he
was 200 yards away again.
I called. He turned back my way, his booming gobbles nudging even closer this time. But he
wouldn't come out of the woods and wouldn't come through the grown-up patch that edged it,
leaving him completely out of my view.
It went on this way most of the morning. I didn't call very much, and he gobbled quite often as
he kept patrolling the woods, back and forth across the same area, but in somewhat unpredictable
fashion.
Most of the time, I didn't know where he was. I could only tell when he gobbled. And I worried
if I tried to move closer, I'd bump into him and end the encounter for good.
The first thing I saw of him in the field were the tips of his fanned-out tail feathers, glowing
orange in the sun. He strutted into clearer view, stretched out his bright red-and-blue neck and
gobbled. He worked closer before dropping down into the woods, and I really thought a few soft
calls would bring him straight to me from there. Instead, he went back to his out-of-sight patrol.
Somewhere on the other side of 11 o'clock, we both gave up on each other. The last gobble I heard
from him sounded almost like a cry of frustration.
One thing was for certain, it hadn't ended quickly.
For better or for worse.
Travis Lau
MAY 2022
19

Pennsylvania Game News - May 2022

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