My 16 year old son Cory shot a Jake the previous spring but now was dead set on blasting his first tom. We arrived at turkey camp along the red cedar river in Dunn County Wisconsin. A couple farmers in the area had graciously given us permission to turkey hunt. We had hunted the area before and were confident there were some nice toms in the area.

As the sky brightened the first morning of our hunt we heard a barred owl sound off. Next thing we heard was the faint gobble some half mile away. Than another, and another. Soon we could hear several gobblers sounding off. None seemed close enough to move on so we sat still in the blind calling every five minutes or so. This was an unusual year as the birds seemed to be roosted in an area we had never heard them in before.

After two days of chasing gobbles from ridge to ridge we never did see any toms on the 160 acres we were hunting on. I told Cory we needed to check out another spot.

We returned to the farm Cory had shot his Jake on the year before and as I walked away from the truck to scout the new area I spooked a turkey. The tom ran across the field and out of site in the woods. While up in the woods he let out a couple loud putts. Suddenly the woods erupted in double gobbles from the other direction. Cory and I snuck through the woods up the hill to see where exactly the birds were. As we got to the top of the hill we could see the flock. They were only ten yards into the alfalfa field from the woods, about fifty yards from us. "At least four toms and several hens". I told Cory, "lets not spook these birds and come back after their gone, set up our turkey blind and return in the morning". "Ok" Cory agreed.

We arrived a couple hours later and put up the turkey tent. We set up the blind five yards into the woods and put some natural camo around us. The dead logs, sticks and leaves broke up the blinds outline. We put out a couple decoys and sat it out until closing. We did hear a couple gobbles but the toms weren’t interested in our calling. The gobblers were simply following the hens around. "I might be able to call the hens to us off the roost in the morning and the toms hopefully will follow" I told Cory.

The next morning we found ourselves back in the blind awaiting the first gobble. I told my son that if two toms come in I would whisper the cadence one, two, three and we will shoot on three. "Sounds good" Cory said.

As it started to get light out we heard several gobbles directly across the alfalfa field some three or four hundred yards away. We could have roosted the birds the night before and got closer to them in the morning but with only two days left to hunt I didn’t want to scare the birds.

Cory said "gee dad those turkeys are far away". "Don’t worry, they were here yesterday, they’ll be back" (I hoped). The gobbling picked up and I let out some soft yelps and purrs. They all gobbled back. It sounded like lots of toms, maybe five or six. After I put the silent treatment on them for fifteen minutes it sounded like they were out of the tree. I poured it on. Cutting, clucking and yelping like mother hen calling her chicks away from the big bad wolf. Just then I saw a fan slowly appear over a hill in the middle of the field. Than another than another, wow, five toms and four hens all came to see what all the ruckus was about.

As soon as the gobblers saw our three hen decoys they gobbled at us for a good fifteen minutes. The hens they just glanced over occasionally but kept feeding in the field. The toms followed their harem across the field finally out of sight. They just wouldn’t leave the hens. I tried every call I had with me and then some. Nothing would pull them away from the hens. I could barely hear them but they continued to gobble in the distance.

Cory and I were disappointed but I reassured him that they may be back if the hens leave. Cory started to doze off. A half an hour later the still far away gobbles appeared to be getting louder. "Maybe it’s my imagination" I thought. "No, their getting closer". "Hey, Cory, get up, there back". Sure enough they started working their way back to the middle of the field were we had seen them before.

Again I saw the full strutted fans make their way over the hill and again they gobbled their heads off at our decoys. Cory said "dad, why aren’t you calling". "I did that last time and it didn’t work, let’s try something else". I let the birds parallel us until they were just out of sight pretending we weren’t interested. I think that frustrated them a little and when I gave out a couple of yelps boy did they let us know they were there. They came back over the hill and looked at the decoys, when they did; I cut like I never cut before, nearly blowing the call out of my mouth. The entire farm echoed with gobbles from nearly every direction, Cory and I couldn’t believe it. Not only did the turkeys we were watching gobble but also from our right and from behind us.

I’ve never heard the woods this loud before. The toms in the field heard the toms in the woods and vise versa, The five big gobblers took off at a dead run towards us, I stopped calling and raised my gun, "Cory, get the one on the left and I’ll get one on the right", as I leaned out the side window to get a shot I found myself face to face with a Jake not five feet from the blind. It was so loud I didn’t hear him come up the hill. He immediately started putting, which only helped bring our toms faster to us. As the toms from the field arrived a couple yards from the decoys they all popped into full strut, "ready one, two, three", BANG, BANG, BANG, birds took to the air in every direction.

My bird laid dead but Cory’s limped across the field wounded. He ran after the tom all the way to the other side of the field, after a couple shots he had his bird. He brought back his first tom and showed me the two beards dangling from the gobbler’s chest.

We had both harvested two magnificent gobblers on one magnificent hunt.

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