OTTUMWA — Iowa has four turkey seasons running from the middle of April until mid-May. The seasons vary in length from a few days for the first season to a couple weeks for the last one. I usually hunt the last season since it is the longest, but more importantly, it is generally warmer. There are few things as unpleasant as sitting in the cold pre-dawn darkness waiting for the sun to come up.

Sunday morning, I was sitting in my blind in the dark, slowly freezing to death while I waited for the sun to come up. There is an old saying about the best laid plans. April was warm and sunny for the most part. May has been cold and miserable. It has rained most days and has even snowed in some areas. What is supposed to be perfect spring days seems more like leftover winter.

I had determined the previous night, if it was raining, I was not going hunting. I knew it would be cold, but cold combined with being wet is more than a person can bear when there is the option of staying in a nice warm bed. When I woke up at about 5, it was not raining much. A little rain and a lot of cold would not be bad. When dawn finally arrived, I was doubting my judgment.

Daylight and cold both slowly crept into my blind. I knew it would be some time before the turkeys flew down from their roosts high in the oak trees in the adjacent timber. The sounds of the night birds were giving way to the ones that welcome the day. I was listening to a cardinal in the distance when I heard a “whoosh” sound nearby. At first I did not recognize what it was. Again I heard “whoosh” coming from just inside the timber to my left. This time I pinpointed the sound and location. A doe was sounding an alarm call to everyone and everything in the area. She could not see me but could smell an intruder in the area. She felt obligated to send out the warning. Deer will frequently make this snort “whoosh” sound just before they bolt off in the opposite directions. If they are not real sure of the source, they may stand and snort for a minute or two. If a guy is sitting in a blind near freezing at just past O’dark-thirty, some doe may alarm the whole area for 20 or 30 minutes. I was ready to come out of my blind and throw rocks at her when she finally decided to go away and mind her own business.

When normalcy returned to my part of the timber, I called a few times. Every five minutes or so, I would repeat the calls. Nothing was happening. It was a good thing I had a full thermos of coffee when I started. Without it, I may have dozed off. I was lamenting my bad luck at having gotten out of a warm bed when I heard steps behind me. If I could hear steps on the long wet grass, something was coming toward me that was either very large or very close. I carefully eased a flap in the back of the blind just far enough to peek out. A hen turkey was standing about 2 feet away. She did not see me as she was intent on watching my decoy. She strode past the blind, up to the decoy, and rudely pecked it in the eye. Satisfied with her assault, she turned and walked away.

A bit later, another turkey started out of the timber on the hill in front of the blind. It did not get close enough to tell if was a gobbler when two deer, just out on a leisurely morning run, chased it back into the trees. I decided, some days a person is not supposed to get a turkey. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. What fun would that be?