I roosted a nice bird, heard him gobble on the roost one time before i slipped out quietly. I came back early in the morning under cover of darkness, set my decoys up in the pasture and slipped back into the thick woods which gave me fantastic cover. My decoys were out in front of the bird by appx 100 yds and i was off to the side in the woods. There is no way this bird could have seen me, its impossible. After setting the decoys and getting myself settled, the bird gobbledon the roost at 6:40am. I offered a soft tree yelp and he did not return with a gobble. I have him one more call, slightly louder and nothing. In fact, he never gobbled again. I hen came to my decoys just before 7am and was really carrying on. I enjoyed watching her. Just after 7, i heard the gobbler pitch down in the creek but he never gobbled and never came out into the field. After sitting for another 1.5 hours, I began to slip around and never saw another bird in the area, which suggested they had moved back into the creek bottom.

any idea what may have gone wrong? usually i know if i made a mistake, but i feel like i did everything perfectly, but maybe not. just curious.

Well I tried to see your location of where you are hunting!

I am thinking you did nothing wrong.......Depends how far north you are as mating was not happening in Mcih. where I was.

He may have seen real hens and ptiched down to them.....then like a love stuck typical male just goolwed them sturtting!

The birds gobbled very little but where strutting....shock gobble was nadda...in MIch.

JW

you proably didnt do any thing wrong!! thats turkey hunting . keep at it he will mess up one of these mornings!!!!!!!!!

Really you did things right ! and you don't know it.

Turkeys hunter no matter where they are from ,"Can Not kill birds everyday" I don't care who you are....

You are now on the very first Step of Patterning a bird. Now if you setup on this bird only once and he did this , you need to stay with him and now your going to setup in a different spot. You want to head to the area you thought the bird may have gone.

This could be another patterning day or you could hit the nail on the head and be right where the bird is heading for. If not , Feel the bird out again on the second day and make another move on the 3rd day into a spot that may be one step closer to a kill.

This is called Patterning a bird and once you have this bird patterned down to the spot that he is traveling , he'll be dead ...BT

i totally agree with adrian...the tom didntcomeyour way, but went another, you have the first puzzle piece...change set-up location to where you heard him pitch towards and try again another morning...you had him patterned correctly off his roost and called rightly...keep at it....you'll be getting closer every day...good luck..

im guesssing he found a hen and was with her that whole time.

I agree he probley pitched down with some hen's,you could try another set up where you think he went,If that doesn't work andIf you know they frequent that feild set up like you did and stay quiet and wait them out a few more hour's longer when you spot them in the feild give them some putt's and purr's sometimes that will work.
Good luck

I agree with all of the above. Patterning a bird is important to success. It is a numbers game and sooner or later you will win. I think you did everything right. Good luck and don't worry about it because some times they just don't gobble but they are there.

that's kinda what i thought. i could not think of a single mistake i made, but found it very strange that he didn't come to me. i thought it was a sure thing given all the circumstances. Then, i decided "that's hunting", but wanted to run it past you guys to double check myself.

thx for the comments. our season is now over, so he will survive another year and be bigger/better next year.

i am in florida, and he is an osceola.