Turkey hunter,
I whole heartedly agree w/ the first part of your post. If a gobbler is henned up and you call, normally the first thing the hen will do is lead the boy away from your call, asap. Also, gobblers are greedy too. A hen in sight or in direct contact has all his attention. Getting him to leave her w/ calls is almost impossible. When you do get a gobbler to leave hens, it is usually because he is not a dominant bird, there may also be a dominant bird in the neighborhood as well.

Where I work we have some resident turkeys, at lunch you can drive a mile down the road and learn by watching them in the stables and pastures and test your best calls. They are there almost every day. Wild birds, but urbanized. I have seen gobblers off 150 yards or so that were called to and strutting your way get intercepted by a hen and then she lead him off. They behave just like people.

"Decoys...Turkeys Arent As Stupid As A Guy Thinks. The Can Tell The Diffrence...The Dumb Ones Get Shot..The Rest Dont." I agree w/ you to a point. Early in the season when they are henned up, you will probably only see 2 yr old birds, the older birds are more wary of a setup. Later in the season as the hens become less available, the decoys become more and more effective. The boys got so skittish where I hunt this year due to all the calling and pressure, it became a decoys game. If you didn't have any, you didn't kill any. BTW, turkeys here in Miss must have a 6 inch beard to be leagal. The last two I killed were both killed off decoys. The first one I killed, w/ an 11 inch beard was headed off. For some reason the gobblers just were hard to get to cooperate in a traditional manner down here in Miss. I know guys that get a limit every year that only ended up w/ one bird this year because of their behavior. Most of them swore off decoys too. They had 91/2 and 10 inch beards. The Jakes came right up to the decoys, the bigger ones were very wary, but the decoys got them close enuff.

Every place and every gobbler is different. keep trying till you find the right combo for that bird.
r
Hank