It’s an interesting facet of human nature, we all love to appear in our best light, as accomplished as possible. There are few better feelings than solving a challenge and through sheer will power and brilliant critical thinking winning the prize, besting the enemy, holding the trophy.

Failure, of course, is the opposite of all this and most shy away from those things we struggle with, bruising our ego. Despite realizing this, I’m still, after hundreds of defeats and frustrations, hunting spring gobblers.

Nothing in hunting can destroy your confidence in decision making or obliterate your ego like a wise, old gobbler.

To begin with, just the parameters involved are daunting. The first and perhaps most difficult involves climbing from those warm, comfortable blankets at 4 a.m. for days in a row or even a month depending on the year. Sometimes you score early but with a limit of 2 birds the season can stretch out seemingly forever. Continuing to rise from the heaven of that comfy, warm bed when you’re not hearing turkeys gobble at dawn is incredibly difficult, it seems so pointless.

Why force myself out of bed when I haven’t heard a tom in a week and a half or longer? It’s easy to understand why many, perhaps more intelligent hunters, weigh the options and come to the conclusion it’s simply not worth the incredible effort necessary just to hunt every morning when everything appears so bleak and hopeless. A turkey simply isn’t worth it.

So, even if you possess the self-discipline or masochistic desire to do this, it in no way guarantees you’ll bag a turkey for a bewildering number of things can go wrong even if you continue hunting and suddenly do hear a bird gobbling.

We seasoned hunters have made so many mistakes in similar situations over the years we’ve put together a pretty sound list of dos and don’ts. On paper this sounds great but, in the woods, your predetermined strategies often fall apart when any number of things happen unexpectedly.

One reoccurring error my hunting buddies and I have made repeatedly is calling from an opening. After all, you’ve called for days or weeks without hearing a gobbler close, so you get careless, sloppy, lose that edge. You walk up on a point, valley edge or bowl and just stop haphazardly and yelp on the box call. You know not to do that unless you’re standing next to a tree and have a pretty clear view around, but it happens.

Unexpectedly, a gobbler cuts loose so close you darn near have a heart attack. Do you immediately sit and get the gun up? No, you try to scurry to a tree. The gobbler pops his head up, sees you and vanishes. You don’t see this of course but you call and never get an answer. Busted! Again!

Gobblers are so wary the word wary needs to be reinvented to twice its connotation. They sneak into your calls expecting an air strike, three coyotes behind every log, land mines every 6 inches, traps, snares and spy drones overhead equipped with turkey homing missiles. They’re scared of their own shadow when calm. They have 6-power eyes and are suspicious of every leaf and blade of grass. They like to close in using depressions, trees, brush, humps and fallen timber as cover and prefer to remain out of sight, just sticking their long, periscope-like necks up and peeking suspiciously at your location.

They are stealthy and then some. But exceptions are the rule and when the moon, Jupiter and Saturn align they waltz straight in just to give variety to life. But that seldom happens, to me anyway.

You realize through painful experience that setting up, where you sit and how well you can see are critical to bagging a bird that does come in, especially those suspicious ones. But knowing that and accomplishing it are two vastly different things. Many times it’s almost pitch black when you set up and if close to a roosting gobbler once its light enough to see your surroundings clearly you realize where you’re sitting is not the best location by a long shot.

You can’t move; up in a tree with their incredible eyesight the bird will spot you for sure. So stuck with your location you call the bird in but the gobbler naturally uses available cover to hide himself yet get a clear view of your location. If only you’d sat over there he’d be in the bag.

This year that identical scenario happened to me. Five gobblers peeking over the hump I didn’t see in the dark, the gobblers coming in from a totally unexpected direction. Still, in brighter light conditions I’d never have sat where I did. Sigh…

Then there’s the bird that gobbles to every call but won’t come. You realize you must change locations. Scott has his opinion, call when halfway to your new set up to keep track of the tom. I disagree, keep silent, avoid having him zero in on your new position, moving to where he’s able to see you.

I gave in, Scott called, the bird gobbled and moved to see us. Busted! Why didn’t we set up before calling just in case?

The list of possible disasters goes on and on … all I can do is wish you good luck.