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   When I get to my desk early each morning to check email, I look across the lake an up the hill to the adjoining timber. Most mornings now, I will see two or three turkeys strutting down the hill getting ready for breeding season. As we draw closer to April, and the start of gobbler season, I get more anxious with each passing day.   

   On a sunny morning, with a light layer of fog creeping across the newly greening grass, I can hear the turkeys gobble.  They are still in bachelor groups, and all the birds are sporting beards.  It is a sight that would make a postcard.  Knowing a group of fifteen or twenty big old gobblers are strutting around my place makes the waiting almost unbearable.  This is the time of year, people who make catalogs about hunting stuff are their most vicious.  On a sunny day, approximately a month before turkey season, a catalog will arrive.  It contains every imaginable accessory and piece of paraphernalia known and not known to turkey hunters.  We as a group carry more stuff into the woods than anybody.  Less equipment is required to hunt cape buffalo or alligators than is needed to hunt turkeys.  The people with the catalogs do not make it any easier.  They know turkey hunters.  They may even be hunters themselves, so they know our weaknesses.  We already have so much stuff, we might need a few more things.  When I first started hunting turkeys, I used a box call, a shotgun, and one shell.  I would find a nice wet log to sit on, use my box call to entice a nice Tom turkey, shoot him, and go home.  There was no need for a second shell, because there was no second shot.  If a person missed, they went home to try again another day.  There was no need to pack up, just throw the gun in the truck and leave.  

   Over the years, thanks to the people with the catalogs, we have found huge amounts of equipment to make our turkey hunt more successful and enjoyable.  First came the assortment of calls.  A person should really carry scratch, diaphragm, and box calls.  If the gobblers do not respond to one, they will surely respond to another.  Camouflage was the next best secret.  Everything from boots to hats had to be camouflage, requiring an entire new wardrobe, including a little camo bag to carry all the calls.  This could all be ordered from the catalog.  Decoys were just the thing.  A hen decoy placed conspicuously in front of a person with a minimal amount of calling experience would convince any gobbler to come in.  The next catalog showed an even more effective arrangement of several hens and a Jake decoy.  If a person had a pop-up camouflage colored tent, they could set up their flock of fake turkeys anywhere they wanted, and not be limited to a convenient wet log or rose bush as a hiding place.  I currently have enough turkey hunting stuff; I pack it in with a Ranger the night before, so I do not forget anything.  The pop-up blind has two chairs complete with coffee cup holders.  The decoys are set out and distances are measured with a range finder.  The calls are all arranged with the full box of super-shock turkey loads.  I am not convinced the new system, complete with all the amenities works any better than the old ways, but I do have a good time preparing for the big hunt.  There are just a couple of things I saw in the new catalog I still need, and I will be ready for opening day.

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