Three years ago, my son and I were invited on a guided afternoon hunt on a large piece of private property near the end of the spring turkey season.

We didn't bag a bird that afternoon, but we had a great time. In fact, we spent much of the time trying to stifle giggles.

What brought on the mirth? It was a multi-round battle between an aggressive turkey hen and an inflatable decoy.

When we arrived at our hunting spot, there was one of those camouflaged, pop-up tent blinds staked down at the edge of a clearing. We unzipped the door and stepped in. On the ground inside was an inflated hen-turkey decoy and a deflated identical one with a pencil-sized hole in it.

"A turkey attacked that one," the guide explained, indicating the damaged decoy. "I'll have to patch it."

He stepped out and put the inflated decoy on its stake, about 10 yards from the blind. When he re-entered the blind, we zipped the door closed and adjusted the window flaps so we could cover the clearing.

The guide leaned forward, put his face out the window, and blew two series of yelps on a diaphragm call. Then we sat back, each of us watching out a different side of the blind.

In very short order, a hen emerged from the woods. She craned her neck and turned her head this way and that. Over the next two or three minutes, she worked her way steadily but slowly closer.

When she reached a point where she could see our hen decoy bobbing in the breeze on its plastic stake, she grew bolder.

She approached the decoy and began making some low purring sounds. She walked around the decoy, looking away as if she were not interested and then whipping her head back around to look at it again. She yelped loudly and stretched her neck upward, as if she were looking around to see if more turkeys were coming.

She sidled closer and closer to the inflatable bird, finally brushing up against it.

Then the fun started.

Suddenly, she leaped into the air like a fighting rooster, kicking at the decoy with her feet and flapping it fiercely with her wings.

She appeared frustrated that the decoy would not fight back. She attacked it twice more before losing interest and starting to move off toward the edge of the clearing. When she had gone about 30 yards, the guide blew another series of soft yelps from inside the tent. The hen returned and attacked the decoy all over again.

Twice more she returned to deliver more kicks and pecks and wing beatings to our mute and defenseless decoy.

All the while, all of us were laughing into our coat sleeves and trying to keep from scaring the hen away with our giggling at her performance.

Finally, after 30 minutes or more of watching this one-sided battle, we decided we should let her go away, in hopes that a legal tom would show up -- and before she destroyed the second decoy!

Unfortunately, we didn't see a male bird that afternoon. But it was an enjoyable hunt nonetheless.