Who is the Turkey Now?

Up early and on the stand before the first crack of light was my strategy. We knew there were birds roosting on the north end of the island. The salient question was: in which direction would their path take them when coming off the roost?

At 7:30am I heard the distinctive blast from a shotgun in the general direction where Art had set up. "One down; one to go", I thought. But by 8:00am nothing had stirred within my area of view.

Hearing rustling leaves on a windless morning tipped me off. The sounds came from the ridge that terminates on the other bank of the sluice some 150 yards from my position. Without detection, I moved the 80 yards from my ground blind to the sluice duck blind which is on the island side of the river some 50 yards from where that ridge ends.

I no more than sat down when it happened. From behind me, "gobble, gobble, gobble"!As I peered through the crack in the rear of the duck blind, I saw a large tom turkey that was headed straight for the three decoys I had set out in the food plot and within easy range of my former location - the ground blind. When I spotted him he was less than five yards from where I had been seated.

From "Turkeyese" to English the loose translation was of those three gobbles I had just heard was "Who is the turkey now". I wish old Tom weren't so fluent in "Turkeyese". I can't print my reply to Mr. Gobbler.