In fact, if the gobbler hadn't taken a few minutes for strutting on his way in, he'd have arrived before legal shooting light!

This decoy setup tactic is hard to beat throughout the mating season, but it's particularly deadly as the breeding winds down. This is thanks to the way the hens react to gobblers as the season progresses.

Deer hunters know how important it is for a buck to find a "hot doe" during the rut -- and how non-receptive does will do whatever they can to avoid being pursued by antlered deer. The same principle applies to turkeys in the spring.

As the season wears on, the hens shy away from toms, becoming more and more elusive as they disperse to their individual nesting sites. Meanwhile, the hot-blooded gobblers are searching tirelessly for another mating opportunity.

Near the conclusion of the spring season, fewer and fewer hens feel the need to be bred. This means that late-season toms focus all their efforts on trying to find that one hen that might possibly be interested. This usually leads gobblers to seek out and follow any lone hen they can find.

I witnessed this firsthand while hunting late in the season this past spring. As the daylight dawned, six different longbeards were gobbling within calling range. This morning -- unlike earlier in the season, when the receptive hens had been as thick as the mosquitoes -- only one hen entered the field where I was sitting.

It quickly became apparent that she wasn't thrilled about being the only available girl in the singles bar.

As soon as she flew down from her roost, she was quickly joined by three mature toms that shadowed her every move. Those big boys were going to follow her wherever she went, hoping for the opportunity to mate.

Thankfully, the hen moved toward my decoys, passing within 10 yards of my shotgun. Her boyfriends followed right in her tracks.

I tagged my gobbler that morning, not because I called the toms to my setup, but because I'd attracted that late-season hen. When she came my way, there was no doubt that the longbeards would follow.

As in the hunt I just described, using this decoy setup in the late season can also serve to draw hens to your vicinity -- which usually means a gobbler will be close behind.