Though this season probably won't be another record one, it doesn't mean that hunters won't enjoy another excellent harvest. Photo by Phillip Jordan

As the first gobble of the morning pierced the cool pre-dawn air, I began to get a sense of déjà vu.

This was my fifth day setting up on the same bird. And just as on the four previous days, the wise old tom was roosted along a steep bluff bordering an open sod field.

Each of the four previous days he had managed to enter the field in a different location -- always well out of range of my setup. He had also regularly been accompanied by a group of hens. They would quickly pull him into the middle of the field where he would strut, gobble and put on a show that even a city slicker would appreciate.

But this was now the last day of Kentucky's 2006 spring turkey season, and the pressure was on for me to make something happen.

I had strategically set up my blind along the field edge, at what I had estimated was a good midpoint between the two opposite ends where the bird had come out the previous four days. This particular day, though, I had left my jake decoy in the vest and settled on one lone hen decoy -- something that he could associate with the light calling he was hearing.

It wasn't long before the distinct sound of flapping wings told me the bird had come down off the roost.

"Don't get too excited," I told my good friend and hunting partner, Billie Crider. "This is how it's started each of the last four days."

This was Billie's first year hunting turkeys, and telling him not to get excited about a gobbling turkey roosted nearby was like telling a kid not to get excited about Christmas morning. This bird had made me look like a rookie for nearly a week, and though I badly wanted to harvest that old tom, I had promised Billie the first opportunity.

Some light calling on the Knight and Hale Ol' Yeller slate call had resulted in nothing but silence. I was starting to think that we had been given the slip once again, when I heard a second set of flapping wings -- this time closer and lower.

The bird had flown over the 4-foot rock ledge just inside the wood line. Moments later, as I sat staring in the direction of the sound, I saw the gobbler's brightly colored head poke through the edge of the bushes.

Slowly making his way into the field, the tom was directly in line with my decoy. As the bird eased his way towards the plastic hen, he went in and out of half-strut, as if he wasn't completely sure of the situation.

When he got within inches of the decoy, Billie eased the end of his Mossberg shotgun out the blind's window opening and clicked off the safety as quietly as possible.

A light cluck on the slate call caused the old bird to extend his neck with a curious glance.

I could see Billie's hands trembling as he snuggled his index finger up against the trigger and took careful aim.

"Take him," I whispered and watched as, with a squeeze of the trigger, Billie's first turkey -- a nice, mature gobbler -- rolled onto his back. An exciting end to what was another successful spring turkey season in Kentucky!

"Successful" may be an understatement, as hunters across the Commonwealth harvested 28,834 turkeys during the 2006 spring season, breaking the previous record harvest of 28,733 set in 2002. That was also an 11-percent increase over the 26,088 birds harvested in the spring of 2005.