Instead of a hen call, he aggressively manipulates the cover over the wood to precisely duplicate a challenging gobble. Herrman reaches again for a bloodwood and black walnut double-sided short-box. But he’s “hung-up” now, and apparently unwilling to move from his secure spot on the edge of a swamp bordering the hardwoods. Since Herrman’s imitation of a hen’s fly-down cackle, Tom has answered the hunter’s clucks, purrs, cutting and yelps with “thundering” gobbles. By late afternoon, a big gobbler was literally five yards from the kill after a two hour verbal duel when a real boss hen had appeared on the opposite side of the field to pull Tom away. The hunter had passed on two jakes Wednesday that had come in quickly to his calls. The reporter that shadowed him all of Wednesday with a camera is gone. Herrman sits alone and contemplates his move. The hunter can move toward a bird he knows is out there, but it’s with a “hold your breath” tenseness that only eases when he settles in at the base of the next tree trunk to try the call again. Tom’s extraordinary vision is nature’s most valuable gift in keeping him alive. There are hunter’s risks in Mother Nature procrastination. Under normal conditions he might see just 10 or 20 yards. Tree buds are just opening, and the hunter can see the full moon rising through 100 yards of open woods. In 2011, the cold spring has changed the game on the 300 family owned acres of lightly rolling hardwoods surrounded by tamarack swamp and 120 acres of tilled fields. They don’t eat all they’re doing is strutting, breeding and chasing other gobblers off.

The biggest gobblers I ever tagged were taken in season five or six including a 26 pound Tom at the end of May that would have been two or three pounds heavier when the season started. There aren’t many hens and the bachelor groups have not yet formed. “It’s the best chance to kill a boss gobbler,” said Herrman, who has won or placed in numerous calling contests in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest. Although a favorite to few hunters, Season 6 is Herrman time. It’s that lonely posture with most hens already on the nest that now makes Tom vulnerable. Usually, as time runs out on season 6, full foliage offers the hunter cover and a chance to move toward any gobbler willing to betray his position with a verbal invitation to any hens still willing. Most often, the spring season carries hunters from the unpredictable weather of a Wisconsin April, to the warm May days of mosquitoes and ticks. “Would have”, though, and survival itself become long-odds when Neal Herrman waits with his arsenal of calls, cradling a Benelli scattergun meticulously sighted in for longbeards to 60 yards. Any gobblers rising to the roost at day’s end on this Friday near Barron in northwest Wisconsin would have already survived five, 5-day seasons….25 days…plus the first three sunsets of this final 2011 challenge. Time was slipping fast on the Wisconsin spring turkey season. “Better Late… Expert turkey caller prefers season 6”

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