Opening day, 2003.

I' d been scouting this particular habitat, and there were/are a ton of birds there--in the weeks before the opener, I' d seen flocks of 75, 35, 19, 6, 12 and 35 in various places around the habitat, so I knew the woods held a good number of birds. The evening before the opener, my hunting buddy and I scouted the area, and, at roost time heard a seemingly endless succession of birds flying up to roost--seemed it took 15 minutes or more for all the birds on the ground to get into the trees, there was a long span of time in which we heard wingbeats nearly continuously. Then, when it was darker and the flying had stopped, I whipped out my Song Dog and blew a few coyote wails, just to hear the toms shock-gobble, and they did. BUT that' s not my story!!

In the morning, I returned with my buddy and with my wife. He set up by the roost site, and my wife and I went to a ridge site (about a quarter to half mile away from his set up as the crow flys) to set up. This ridge is flat and open on top for a width of about 15-20 yards, and there are no trees on the ridge top itself. The ridge is probably 200 yards long, and in the shape of a crescent. To one side is a beautiful babbling brook, but the dropoff is so sharp/steep, that you can' t hear the brook babbling unless you stand right on the edge. The valley to that side is deep and open, so when you stand on the edge of the ridgetop, you can see to the bottom and across to the other side of the valley. The valley to the right is more heavily wooded, so you can' t see as far.

We set up in the dark at the end of the ridge, looking out over the open ridgetop. Behind us were trees and a small clearing, maybe 50 yards across. The valley with the babbling brook was to our left, the heavier wooded valley to our right.

Then came the dawn. A beautiful, clear, sunny, blue, golden day and the tree yelping and the gobbling began!!!

The turkeys were roosted everywhere around us!! Behind us in the woods on the other side of the 50 yard clearing, in the woods off the ridgetop to the left in front of us, in the woods off the ridgetop to the right in front of us, and seemingly everywhere else in between. And gobble they did, like fans doing the wave at a football stadium, a bunch would start gobbling behind us, then it would roll from our left, in front, to our right and back behind us. I was really enjoying the morning, but my wife, who was on her first turkey hunt, was in absolute awe. (Well, so was I. It was the absolute most spectacular morning gobbling I' d ever heard.) The toms would thunder from behind, then up the valley, down the canyon, ringing here, then there. And it went on, and on, and on. Simply glorious!! I told my wife that its the gobble that makes us want to hunt ' em, and she was getting a lifetime' s worth of gobbling in one setting.

The hens were tree yelping as well, and the cacophony was spectacular. If the toms were silent for all of 10 seconds, the hens were tree yelping to fill the void. An occasional goose would fly by, and you could envision the flight of the goose as he flew, by the gobbling wave it set off, responding to its honking. 45 minutes after the initial gobble, the toms finally had all hit the ground and settled down, and the woods reverted to their quieter, more peaceful ways, with but the occasional gobble.

My wife was greatly impressed, and still struggles for the right words (as do I) to tell everyone she knows about how spectacular that morning was. Needless to say, that was a memory for a lifetime.

(And yes, we did get turkeys that day.)