My eyes were drooping as I sat against the big maple tree. The warm spring sun served only to lull me further off to dreamland. It had been a long day that had begun at 4:30 a.m. But dry, mild weather is a rarity in northern Michigan in April, and I had resolved to make the most of the opportunity Mother Nature had given me that day.

Two gobblers were out there somewhere, although neither had responded to my short series of clucks and purrs -- topped with a seductive yelp -- in the hour or so that had transpired after I spotted them moving along a wooded hillside and rushed ahead of them to "cut them off at the pass."

I wasn't surprised, because after all, this was public land, and I was certain my calls weren't the first ones these birds had heard from a hopeful turkey hunter in the last week and a half since Michigan's 2005 spring turkey season had begun.

My four previous setups that same day had been typical of what many hunters know as the game that is spring turkey hunting -- all of them hearing talkative, apparently eager gobblers, yet all of them ending with an empty game bag.

With work awaiting me at home, this would be my final attempt of the day. But with only three days left to hunt on my tag for Area J's second seven-day early season, time was running short.

It hadn't been a bad season so far, and certainly not the debacle that occurred in 2004, when extended extremely cold, windy, wintry and wet weather had kept gobblers tight-lipped and apparently totally uninterested in the opposite sex throughout Michigan's six-week season.

Three gobblers had fallen to my calls so far in 2005, one to a buddy's 12-gauge during a typical late-April snowstorm, and two to the shotguns of first-time turkey hunters now hooked on the phenomenon of spring gobbler hunting.

Now, finally, it was my turn. But except for the twittering of songbirds, the forest was quiet. But there is an old adage that is especially true among dedicated turkey hunters -- "Never say never." I fought desperately to keep my eyes open, focusing my attention on the antics of a chickadee on a nearby branch.

Suddenly a twig snapped directly behind me. A deer, I thought, as I slowly turned my head and glanced behind me. What met my eyes was the flash of a red head and the glaring stare of a dominant wild turkey tom standing 30 feet behind me.