I hunted three different properties in three different counties. The story was always the same except for one or two times. Either I heard nothing or I heard birds that gobbled once or twice and then nothing. I heard birds about 2/3 of the time, which is good. The problem was that if you heard him gobble once or twice, that was just long enough to go get in the general area where he was, not really set up on him close. Then, he would never answer you. In fact, only once did a bird answer me all season. My calling may be terrible, but it's been good enough to kill many turkeys in the past.

I tried hunting them in silence in the general area for hours in the morning, just calling softly maybe every 20 minutes. That never worked. I killed one in the afternoon calling on high ridge where I knew one had been strutting. He came in without ever making a sound.

It's hard to kill birds when they don't gobble unless you have the ability to do a lot of afternoon field hunting, which I don't. I don't know why they acted this way this year. I've hunted this properties in the past, and nothing has changed, so it's not that. The only thing I noticed this year was a huge number of hens. I can only guess that with that many hens around, gobbling once or twice in the tree was enough.

I was glad I got to hunt, but it sure was a frustrating year. Only things I didn't do where (1) try to go roost a bird and get right under him the next day (I don't have much time late evenings to do that), and (2) mid-day/afternoon hunt as much as I wanted. Seems like people who hunted up in the day this year where I am did much, much better.