In the Winter issue, Brian Lovett uses his new column, "The Complete Caller," to tell about the merits of the often-overlooked tube call. We needed photos to go with Brian's article, so he brought in his 10-year-old Perfection brand tube. Here it is on the left. It looks like a couple scraps of PVC pipe jammed together, and the diaphragm tucked into the small end is the only clue that it's a turkey call. It won't win any call-making contests, but so what? When something works you go with it, and Brian says that's why he still carries it.

That got me thinking about one of my go-to calls. The call on the right is a crow call from Ben Lee Calls of Coffeeville, Alabama. The late Ben Rodgers Lee gave it to me during a tour of his little manufacturing facility in 1989. No, that's not a wooden barrel; it's wood-grain plastic. And the sticker, what's left of it, further adds to the K-Mart style. But wow! It blows deep and loud like few other crow imitators I've heard.

I own several good locator calls, but every winter when I'm sorting through my mountain of "stuff" in preparation for spring, Ben's call always ends up in the must-have pile. And as long as it keeps on making ear-splitting, irritating sounds, it will have a place.

It's ironic that on the same day I was posting Lovett Williams' photo of the strutting hen (see Oct. 1 entry), Turkey & Turkey Hunting online editor Corey Graff was encountering a different hen that was full of herself. The next day he sent me this photo and story:














Turkey vs. Jeep

Driving home from the F+W offices, I made a turn onto a lightly traveled
country road and came face-to-face with a turkey defiantly standing
her ground in the center of the road. I came to a stop. The turkey poked herhead up and seemed to be challenging me -- then ran to one side of the road, turned and then puffed up her chest and stared at my Jeep.

As I began to pull forward, she ran back in front of me, so I stopped again. Suddenly the bird turned and ran away down the centerline, then stopped, turned around and again began defiantly posturing.

She never strutted, but the display continued for several minutes -- long enough to pull out my camera and shoot a few photos throughthe bug-splattered windshield -- until eventually the bird stepped aside and allowed me to drive past. Even then, shen never ran off.

Did this bold bird have little ones in the nearby brush it was protecting?
Or did the turkey simply feel like playing chicken? If the latter was the case, the real question is: Who won?

Posted by Jim Schlender, Editor

Lovett Williams Jr., a longtime contributing editor and Biology columnist just sent in his Q and A column for the March issue (yes, we are already thinking spring around here!). He included a photo of a strutting hen that I thought was so cool I wanted to give everyone a sneak peek.



Williams says that a hen briefly fanning her tail feathers while jousting with rival birds is pretty common, but a hen that is fully fanned and dragging her wing tips like a gobbler is extremely rare. During his countless hours of turkey observations over 50 years, Williams says he has seen this behavior only three times.