Photo courtesy of Bruce Ingram.

The day began in a puzzling fashion, as I hadn’t heard any gobblers sound off at dawn across the Greenbrier County mountainside. The landowner had said that he was hearing and seeing turkeys and he even encouraged me to come hunt on his property. So, shortly after daybreak on that early May morning last spring, I decided to traverse the ridgetops, sending calls into the hollows below.

At the third cove I came to, a tom greeted my yelps with a gobble; I immediately ran down the mountainside about 20 yards and set up. But after doing so, I noted that a tangle of downed trees lay between the turkey and me, making it unlikely that he would ascend my way.

I quickly decided to make a move, ran back up the mountain, and then made a long loop to my left, eventually setting up about 15 yards off a logging road that I guessed the tom was walking to and fro on. Settled, I emitted a few cautious yelps and was pleased to hear two toms sound off, one about 75 yards to my left and the other a similar distance to my right.

It was then that I realized that all I had to do was resist the urge to call too much, sit tight, and wait for one of the birds to come around the respective bends between them and me. Because when either one of them did, both toms would be within 30 yards. A kill was a sure thing -- or so I thought.

For it was at that moment that I heard the roar of an ATV and soon saw the landowner approaching my position. The gentleman had thought I was afield on another part of his property and felt quite badly that he had spooked not one, but two gobblers. But I was heartsick because for the umpteenth time in my turkey-hunting career, a sure thing had not been so sure after all.

After the landowner had sincerely and profusely apologized, I reasoned that the twin toms wouldn’t stay alarmed forever and that I merely needed to reposition myself. I then moved about 75 yards to the edge of a second and lower road that borders a wood lot and a field.

Sure enough, my logic was sound. About 90 minutes later, in came three turkeys, one of them a nice gobbler that could have been the bird to my right that had been alarmed earlier. However, although my logic had been sound, my choice of a setup was not so wise. Because for the next 45 minutes, the gobbler continued to strut back and forth in front of me, never coming closer than 55 yards -- well out of range for my 12 gauge. Eventually, the trio strolled away.

Three hours later after haplessly and hopelessly trying to call the threesome back and failing to elicit a response at any other setups on the farm, the 1 p.m. closing time came and I sullenly drove home. Unfortunately, many West Virginia turkey chasers drove home in a melancholy mood last spring.

That’s because the 2007 harvest of 9,976 turkeys declined from the 2006 tally of 11,735, making the former figure 15 percent lower. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR) had predicted a downturn well before the season began because of poor wild turkey brood production in 2005.

Veteran Mountain State sportsmen know that a major factor whether a season will be a good one or not concerns the status of the hatch from two years previously. Two-year-old toms are often the males that gobble the most and are most likely to venture into calls. When their numbers are low, hunters are left to deal with 3-year-olds (which often are notoriously hard to lure in) and jakes from the previous year’s hatch (which are notoriously unpredictable).