We were almost to our hiding spot when the hen turkey yaaaked directly overhead. Like burglars caught on the back lawn, Greg Chevalier and I froze.

There, naked as a ... well as a 10-pound turkey hen on a bare tree limb was a hen turkey, no more than 30 feet over our heads.

It was too dark to see her blinking eyes, but I could just imagine her little turkey brain whirring.

"Is that cows stomping around down there? Too tall for coyotes. Deer?"

Our well-laid plans would amount to naught if she flushed out of that tree, taking her flock mates with her. But she just fluffed her wings and went back to sleepWe ducked our heads, hunched over like a couple of hunchback Herefords and shuffled the last 30 yards to our hiding spot, under the few small trees in the very corner of the fence

Around us, turkey gobblers and turkey hens were welcoming the coming day with gobbles and yelps - but all in the wrong place. Again.

"Well, they've double-crossed us again," I thought. "Now they're roosting behind us. Might as well work out the plan and see what happens. Maybe we'll get lucky.'

Directly in front of us was the sandy strutting spot where we'd see a flock of big gobblers at dawn the previous two days.

About 75 yards along the trail we'd just left, Lane Tobiassen and Morgan Tyler were hidden in another clump of oaks, hoping we'd send a gobbler their way.

The trap was set. The hand was dealt.

Now nothing to do but wait for daylight and let the games begin.

Gobblers Prevail

Snatching defeat from the jaws of gobbler victory was becoming a habit.

It was the third morning we'd played a dawn game of cat and mouse with these gobblers. And so far, the gobblers kept winning.

At least my companions were getting an eyeful of Texas turkeys.

Oregonians Greg and Lane had come to Texas, to the Terra Rosa Ranch near McLean, to hunt spring gobblers with New Yorker Bill Conklin and Virginian Jim Crumley.

Greg is president of Chevalier Advertising, which represents a host of outdoor companies including Nikon and Nosler bullets, a good excuse to hunt all over the country. Lane is vice president of marketing for Danner Boots. More fisherman than hunter, he was rapidly becoming a turkey fanatic.

Bill Conklin is publisher of Field & Stream and Outdoor Life magazines, while Jim Crumley is the "father of modern camouflage," having invented the legendary Trebark camouflage 20 years ago that revolutionized hunting camo.

Terra Rosa biologist Scott Hohensee was guiding Bill and Jim. Greg and Lane drew the black bean and got me as their turkey guide.

Morgan Tyler, a range science student at Texas Tech when he's not bass fishing, was our camp cook and assistant guide for the weekend. He came along to share in the fun ... and probably to keep me from getting lost on the 57,000-acre Terra Rosa.

The ranch, owned by Royal Oil Company, offers some of the best whitetail deer and quail hunting in Texas. And it also caters a few spring turkey hunts for the thousands of Rio Grande turkeys that cover the ranch's rolling hills and cottonwood-lined draws and canyons.

The first morning we were hunting one of the most gorgeous turkey spots I've ever seen. A series of rolling hills dropped into a shallow bottom, lined by giant cottonwoods. Thick stands of smaller oaks spread out from the fence line along one side of the cottonwoods. And beyond that stretched a big wheat field, partially cut, where the birds would strut and scratch in the midday hours.

Two days earlier, Scott and I had watched several longbeards at dusk, easing into the trees.

I set Greg and Lane facing down toward the strutting zone.

So of course, when the turkeys flew down, they were behind us.

"There's a dozen big gobblers strutting right behind us," Morgan hissed in my ear. They might as well have been in Lubbock. The guys couldn't turn to shoot. The entire flock wandered on past, just out of range, then spread out on the flat.

We had a ringside seat to watch those big toms strut and drum for at least 20 minutes ... about 30 yards out of range.

"What a sight!" Greg laughed after the birds had disappeared.

Over lunch, Bill didn't let us suffer in silence, though. Scott called up two gobblers before lunch, which Bill promptly tagged.

Lane, Greg and I returned to the strutting zone that first afternoon, knowing that eventually those toms would return to strut and hang out before going to roost. I began calling every few minutes. Hens and jakes filtered by our hiding spots, in the small oaks all afternoon.

Then about 5, a faint gobble sounded behind us. I rolled onto my side, just in time to catch sight of several red heads bobbing back in the brush. A half-dozen mature gobblers were wandering and strutting - 40 yards behind us. Again we were facing the wrong way.

Greg, 10 yards behind me, had also turned and was more or less facing in the right direction, if I could get the toms to come down to us.

"Time to quit fooling around," I thought. I already had a diaphragm call in my mouth and began a series of raspy yelps. The toms immediately perked up and began walking toward us.

Then they stopped. Then they walked off. Then back. Then off.

After 30 minutes of calling, my tongue was going numb, when they seemed to make up their minds. In a line and at a steady walk, they started down the fence line toward us.

I cut my eyes back toward Greg. He has his side-by-side Beretta up.

I glanced back, and four of the gobblers were now 25 yards away, still bunched up. Then they separated, and the largest broke into a strut.

He was still strutting when Greg's shot flipped him in a cloud of feathers.

Winning Brains Game

The second morning, I was sure I had the birds dead to rights. We'd set up to catch 'em as soon as they flew down from the roost.

But I made one error. Sure I knew the birds would be, I didn't sound off a locator call, just to be sure.

Every single turkey pitched out of the tree - and winged to the far end of the clearing, 100 yards away. Again the big toms strutted back and forth and followed the hens off into the woods.

We tried to intercept them at a windmill a half-mile up the hill, and it almost worked. A big gobbler strutted to within 20 yards of our hiding spot, but Greg's shot went wide.

"Hey, the killing's secondary," I suggested. "Getting him fooled that close is what it's all about. Did you see him strutting all the way across that hill?"

Confident the birds would eventually circle back to the wheat field, Lane, Greg and I returned to the tree line where the birds had first flown down at dawn. We settled deep into the shade under the trees. Greg and I were looking out onto the flat, while Lane was watching the other way, down a line through the trees.

I'd been scratching on my slate for a few minutes when a gobble answered back in the oaks.

Thus began a calling contest of sorts. I tried every call in my vest. No answer.

Greg would punch on his little cedar box. And the gobbler would roar back.

Every so often, Greg would look back over his shoulder at me, hold up the little box and grin through his headnet. I just shrugged and waved him onSuddenly, jake gobblers started popping out of the woods like big black grasshoppers. Several walked right back to us, close enough to reach out and grab. Then back in the brush, the shape of a larger bird appeared. He began to circle wide, around Greg and I - and directly in front of Lane.

I could see the big gobbler, lit up like polished bronze in the morning sun. But could Lane see him?

"BAAAAWooM! BooM! Boom!"

Lane's Remington roared three times in rapid succession before the old gobbler stayed down for keeps.

"My first gobbler!" Lane beamed with pride as we admired the giant. And quite a giant gobbler it was - carrying long curved 11/4-inch spurs and two beards - one almost 10 inches and the other four inches.

Reason to celebrate

So now it was our last morning. Two gobblers in the bag, two to go. Could we pull off a double?

As it grew lighter, Greg and I were surrounded by gobbling and hen yelps.

Then I heard a voice of hope - in the form of a raspy old hen back up the hill above us. It was joined by more yelps, then a deep-throated gobble.

"Hey, maybe there's a chance," I thought. "If those hens will just fly down first ..."

As if on cue, a chorus of wings cut the air in front of us, as a half-dozen hens pitched out of the trees and landed within 15 yards of us. And then more and more.

And then a flight of gobblers, like hedgehopping bombers, swooped over from behind us, no more than 10 feet over our heads, beards swinging in the dawn air.

Four big boss birds landed among the hens and broke instantly into tail-flared struts.

Shotgun already shouldered and pointing into the group, Greg had to only wait until the right bird cleared the group.

"Wait. Wait," I thought. We'd agreed the night before to let most of the flock move toward Lane and Morgan, following their usual route, before Greg shot. That way there was a good chance he'd also get a shot.

The hens began disappearing into the brush to the south. But it was looking like the whole group might move off en mass, never offering Greg an open shot.

Four big gobblers within 10 yards - and no shot again?

Then one huge gobbler bumped his way through the group, spinning like a top, wingtips dragging in the damp dust, strutting out to the right of the flock.

"The one on the right," I hissed, no more than a whisper. "Take him. NOW!"

"BA-WHOOM!"

Greg's 12-gauge slammed the old tom to the ground. Every other turkey in sight sprinted for cover - but to the east, instead of south. Would they bypass Lane again?

Greg was already starting to stand when I grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait! Just a minute ..."

It was a long shot, but maybe if we stayed out of sight ...

"BAA-WHHOOO!"

Lane's Remington 870 finished the thought for me.

Now we both jumped from cover, taking the four short strides to Greg's monarch. Across the cut wheat field, Lane and Morgan were also walking out - to another big gobbler kicking its last!

A chorus of Aggie whoops and Red Raider yells filled the still, morning air.

"I do love it when a plan comes together ... finally!"

Lee Leschper is outdoor editor of the Globe-News and an award-winning writer whose columns have appeared in several newspapers statewide.