Watching your fellow hunters in action on all those TV outdoors shows, you could get the idea that wild turkeys are easier to smoke with a shotgun than with slow-burning hickory chips. Unfortunately, we don't always hit the bull's-eye. Everyone, from average hunters to genuine experts like you and me, misses the mark once in awhile, usually due to a common, avoidable error.

Take my whiff last spring, for instance.

My wife, Mary, was a witness. She was just breaking into turkey hunting, and she sat beside me in a blind at the edge of a big corn field. She had left her shotgun at home so that she could concentrate on listening and learning. I promised she'd hear plenty of gobbling from the roost, and the trees echoed with turkey talk long before sunup. I was thrilled when two softly-yelping hens walked into the field about 100 yards to the right of our decoy spread, and nearly jumped out of my boots when their flirtatious chatter drew a thunderous response from the shrubbery just to our left. Soon after, a huge tom stepped into the field.

"Don't move a muscle," I whispered. "He's got to get closer for a shot."

The puffed-up tom twirled around in a circle twice, then walked slowly our way -- 70, 60, 50 yards out. Then he saw the live hens. They looked about nervously, no doubt wondering why my plastic flock -- a jake and two hens -- failed to acknowledge their greetings. As they turned toward the middle of the field, my targeted tom began to follow.

With a push-button call, I squeezed out my most seductive purr. The tom turned to face the sound, and then just stood there.

"I think he's in range," I breathed. I put the bead on his bean and fired. At the sound, all three of our early-morning visitors flapped their wings and sailed 200 yards to the other side of the field.

What had I done wrong? Plenty. But telling that old story is a bit painful, so why don't we first consider the many reasons other turkey hunters manage to strike out at trigger time.

In fact, let's do it David Letterman style, with a countdown list. Here are my nominees for the top 10 reasons for missing can't-miss turkeys, in ascending order of their frequency of occurrence.

A drum roll, please?

LEFT OR RIGHT?
Experienced shooters needn't worry about cross-eye dominance, but rookies who miss two or three toms in succession might be keeping a left eye on the target while shooting from their right shoulder, or vice versa.

The older a shotgunner is when diagnosed with cross-eye dominance, the more difficult it may be to solve his problem. Some victims trick their non-dominant eye into taking over by covering the dominant-side lens of their shooting glasses with a piece of masking tape.

Alternately, a shooting coach might counsel a victim to try switching from open sights to a quick-point style of gun scope. The truly confounded hunter may be compelled to buy a new shotgun and switch to the other side of the plate.

QUIPMENT FAILURE
Many a gobbler has survived a close encounter with a hunter because the shotgun aimed at it was slightly out of whack or even failed to go "boom." Two years ago, I shot over the last in a line of five longbeards because my rear fiber-optic site had fallen off without my knowledge. I didn't notice its absence until I took aim. Now I check my sights and their alignment as religiously as I verify that my safety is in the "on" position.