It was the morning of May 23, the next to last day of West Virginia's spring gobbler season and the last day I could go hunting. My mood was decidedly glum, as I had seemed to resolve to end the 2008 season by committing a series of blunders.

The late season had started promisingly enough, as I had called in and killed a Monroe County bird earlier in the month. But a few days later while hunting on the same farm, I had blown a 30-yard shot at a gobbler. This snafu had been followed by my receiving a tip from a friend on the location of a hot gobbler in the Jefferson National Forest, a tom reputed to be wedded to a certain mountainside for roosting and strutting purposes.

But in my desire to move in close to the roosted longbeard, I had walked under his bedtime tree, sending him flapping off into the darkness. Several days later, I went after the old boy again, only to have to leave for work while he was gobbling and likely on his way in. I also returned to the farm where I had missed the tom, and, predictably, he was silent.

So last May 23, I drove to a Greenbrier County farm outside of Lewisburg, a locale I had hunted a number of times over the years -- and one that the landowner had told me had only been hunted a few times all season with no one pulling a trigger on a bird.

At dawn, I heard several gobbles ring out, but the source for them was an adjoining farm where the landowner kept three domestic gobblers in his barnyard -- mouthy males that gobbled over and over all the time. I must confess that the first time I heard them, I tried to call them across the boundary between the two farms. Only later did I learn that they were not likely to leave their comfortable surroundings and grain.

Moving to the far edge of the landowner's property (so as to escape from the racket of the barnyard boys), I gave a few short yelps at 6:30 a.m. To my temporary joy, a gobbler rang out. As I ran toward him, I heard a second outburst, but then realized that he was located on another farm -- and that he had a hen (which had begun yelping) with him. So, all I would have to do to kill the bird was call him away from his hen, across a pasture, under a fence that separated the properties, and up a hill where I would set up. None of these events was likely to occur, especially not all four.

By 6:45, I was situated on the hill, and the tom had bellowed out a total of four times. My experience is that late-season West Virginia birds gobble far less than earlier in the spring, so I resolved to sit still. At 7:34 -- and with the tom having not gobbled for over 45 minutes -- I saw a red, white and blue head bobbling along, looking for the "hen" that had earlier called. I shouldered my 12 gauge and fired.