Over grilled steaks that evening, we puzzled over the birds' refusal to respond and the approach to take in the morning. Bob and I decided to return to the field well before first light and set up near Gertrude; I knew the birds could see her from where they roosted.

At dark-thirty the next morning, we eased along the field edge and set up near where I'd sat the afternoon before, under a pin oak at the field edge. At dawn the roosting turkeys began to wake up on the roost and tree-call. Bob answered softly using a Lynch box call. The birds flew off the roost -- to the opposite end of the field, ignoring both the call and Gertrude. We discussed our next move as we watched the flock feed. Several more turkeys joined the flock; it looked a like a turkey convention.

Three turkeys, a hen and two poults, interrupted our discourse, flying out of trees opposite where we were hunkered down. The hen landed in the pin oak above our heads, while the two poults landed by Gertrude.

"Shoot!" Bob stage-whispered.

I looked at the hen in the tree 5 yards over my head, and then at the poults 30 yards out in the field. Thanking her for bringing the kids, I shot one of the poults.

We sat quietly then, letting the adrenaline subside, relaxing as the sun reached us in the field. I like to believe that the hen came to Bob's calls, proving that at least some fall turkeys respond to a call.

Hearing the shot, Ray Eye joined us and, with the glowing fall colors as a background, shot some video of Bob and me walking out of the field with the turkey. It was a first for me: the first time I'd observed fall turkeys respond to a call. And it was the first turkey killed by any of us at fall turkey camp.

We were hunting on private ground, near one of Missouri's largest public holdings, the Mark Twain National Forest.

WHERE TO HUNT FALL TURKEYS
Missouri's turkey population has grown steadily since the early 1960s, when Missouri Department of Conservation biologists began reintroducing wild turkeys trapped in southern Missouri to selected locations all over the state. Early on, biologists believed the largest populations and the most introduction success would come from the release sites in the wooded Ozark hills. As the introduced birds began to multiply and the population expanded, not only the Ozark introductions were hugely successful but also, surprisingly, those in the northern prairies and farmlands, which worked just as well -- in some cases, better, as wild turkeys adapted easily to farmlands and woodlots.

Today, Missouri supports one of the largest eastern wild turkey populations in the nation. Each year, Missouri turkey hunters harvest more turkeys than do their counterparts in any other state. The MDC was so successful with the introductions that they later traded wild turkeys, live-trapped on public and private lands, to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and other states for ruffed grouse and other animals to support reintroductions here in the state.

CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN
Mark Twain NF
One area that we hunted abutted a unit of the Mark Twain National Forest, which served as a focal point for early wild turkey introductions. The forest encompasses more than 1.4 million acres spread in blocks of land from central Missouri to the southern Ozark boarder. And regardless of the site of your hunt, it supports an excellent wild turkey population.