It was fun to watch and listen to him. Several times he even walked a few yards in my direction but he couldn't bring himself to leave the real hens behind. Meanwhile, the unimpressed ladies went about the business of filling their crops while paying no attention at all to the gobbler. Then, it started raining buckets again and everything changed.

The water was falling off the oak leaves and down the back of my neck when I saw the hens trot deliberately away from the tom and disappear in thick woods. When I called again the gobbler, now suddenly alone, turned his attention to my bogus siren. He marched right to me and I dropped him less than 25 yards away. Interestingly, a couple of hours later the sun was shining and a light breeze was blowing. Evidently, the barometer had been rising all morning long.

From the above examples, you might deduce that picking the perfect time to go turkey hunting during unsettled weather is about like tossing darts at a calendar. Actually, while there are no guarantees, it's not all that uncertain. For instance, it seems to me that it's far better to be in the turkey woods when a storm is tapering off than when it's just arriving on the scene. True, I've been lucky on days when it was still raining lightly but each time I thought to check it out the barometer was rising or stable.

Actually, if I had a choice, which is not always the case, I'd be tempted to follow Tom Stone's lead and wait for just the right morning after a storm to get out there among them.

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Of course, the concept of perfect timing does not apply only to weather conditions. It also includes other situations that, when recognized for what they are, can lead to the type of wild turkey encounter from which lasting memories are made.

For example, a few years ago my son Mark and I were hunting on a sizable chunk of timber company land where we occasionally found turkeys in residence. And that fine April day was no exception. At the first hint of daylight, we heard a tom sound off from his roost and later we saw him on the ground with a bevy of comely hens.

Given the circumstances, it's not surprising that our calls had little affect on the turkeys. The tom gave out an occasional, "Here I am," gobble but he wasn't about to jilt the hens, which were slowly leading him away. Finally, Mark and I decided to try to circle around the birds and head them off, but when we made our move something happened that changed the attitude of the whole hunt.

We were hurrying along a low ridge out of sight of the turkeys when we jumped four deer from their beds. The animals barreled downhill right past the flock and scattered the birds in all directions.

Ordinarily, when you accidentally bump turkeys in the spring, that's it for the day. However, the incident in question was significantly different. Deer and turkeys live side by side so, even though the birds scattered when the deer ran past, Mark and I figured they would soon come back together. Rather than throwing in the towel, we moved to the last place where we saw the group and sat there awaiting further developments. In less than 30 minutes we heard a gobble. Five minutes later Mark called the tom into shotgun range.

It was a perfect time to call that gobbler, obviously, and it's a very good thing that we recognized the opportunity as it unfolded and were able to take advantage of it.