And I, who had avoided buying turkey decoys for years even though some of my friends swear by them, came home and went right to the nearest sporting goods store and bought a turkey decoy.

That fall, I attended a conference of outdoor writers where manufacturers of hunting and fishing equipment demonstrate their latest products for the outdoor press. It was an outside event on the shore of a lake. I was strolling down the aisles of booths when I looked across a couple of aisles and, for a second or two, I thought someone had tied a live gobbler to a stake for some kind of display.

But what I saw was a new decoy called a Pretty Boy, which came as a set with a submissive hen decoy called Pretty Girl. The tom decoy comes with an artificial tail fan, but was made so that you could replace the artificial one with a real turkey fan taken from a real bird. This display bird had a real turkey fan inserted, and, with a light breeze that made it wobble a little, it really looked like a fat ol' gobbler waddling and turning in a slow circle. (Continued)

Of course, I had to buy a set. And I could not wait for the next spring turkey season to roll around.

The decoy worked wonders.

Now, I will admit that on the particular hunting grounds where I often open my spring hunting season, you can kill a turkey without the aid of decoys. The few hunters who have access there know where the birds roost and approximately where the birds spend their days. It is fairly easy to set up an ambush and kill a passing bird there. But, of course, they prefer to call their birds and bide their time, always looking for the biggest and best bird to harvest.

I once brought a friend from London, England, with me. Needless to say, he had never hunted turkeys before -- or even seen one for all I knew. He was an ex-professional kangaroo hunter who spent a couple of years in the Australian outback, thinning out kangaroo populations and selling the meat. But he had never had the opportunity to bag a North American wild turkey.

I placed the tom and hen decoys about 30 yards in front of our blind. We could see a long distance in front and to our right through short-grass pasture, but there were thick woods and brush to our left and behind us.

The wind was just right -- strong enough to animate the gobbler decoy with a little motion, but not so strong that it whipped the bird around too much.

Way off on the other side of the pasture I saw two birds come out of the woods. I raised my binoculars and could see that they were both good-sized gobblers with decent beards. Either would be a fine trophy for my English friend's first kill.