"If You Have Him Hollerin' Don't Start Follerin'."

The morning had been fairly uneventful for Lance & me,  the only birds we heard were a long way off & none were where we could chase them. Around 8:00, I decided to try a greenfield on the edge of some clearcut. I planned on setting up for a long sit & do some soft feeding calls. I would use my mouth call & my slate to throw out some purrs, soft yelps, & an occasional cluck to sound like several turkeys feeding in the field. This is a technique I've used for years & have been very successful with, primarily on afternoon hunts. I reached a point about 75 yards short of the field & stopped to glass the area. There was no sign of a turkey, so I tried to shock them one more time with my crow call. I had no sooner got the second 'caw' out when I was rudely interrupted by a thunderous gobble about 200 yards past the field. I knew exactly where he was. He was in a small strip of trees in a draw in the middle of the clearcut still on the a limb. I looked at Lance in disbelief & then frantically proceeded to find my gloves & head net. We found a set-up for the camera & I started talking to him. It was amazing! I could not make a wrong call. Everything I said he answered loud & clear. Unfortunately, he wasn't moving. So, after about half an hour passed with me flirting & him gobbling from the same limb. I tried to pitch my call down to our left by slightly turning my head over my left shoulder & calling out the side of my mouth. It worked! We watched him pitch down & disappear into the draw. Unfortunately, he was headed toward the big timber about 150 yards to our left. I called & he answered. I waited a few minutes & called again and he answered, further off heading away from us. Lance & I agreed that we needed to move. Instead of chasing directly after him, we went straight for the draw where he had been roosting. We got set-up & waited a while. I called again & he answered me... yep, you guessed it, from the field we were set-up on to start with. We had simply changed seats in this little chess game. I shook my head & I think Lance laughed out loud. We sat there for a long time before I tried to call again. When I did, he answered me from the opposite side of a windbreak less than 80 yards in front of me. This old boy was really putting in the overtime & mileage trying to get to me. The first thing I saw was a fan topping a little rise exactly 60 yards in front of me. He was in full strut when he stepped into view. I got the nod from Lance & I hammered him at 56 yards. This was the last weekend of season & most birds had lost substantial weight from the whole breeding process. This whopper weighed 23 pounds with a 10 inch beard & 1&1/8" spurs . We had been chasing this bird... er... this bird had been chasing us for nearly 2 hours. If we would have just sat tight to begin with, we would have already had him in the frying pan for brunch. I was very fortunate to bag this bird, but I did re-learn a valuable lesson that day: "If you have him Hollerin' Don't Start Follerin."