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   Rising in the wee hours of the morning to go turkey hunting, the first thing I do is turn on the coffee pot. If a person is going to be sitting around in the dark on a cold morning, it is important to have coffee. Having had the wisdom to assemble the required equipment for the hunt on the prior evening, it only took a few minutes to load my gear in the side-by-side. By then, the coffee was ready, and I poured a large, insulated cup to go.

   I drove out to the far side of the lake and parked below the hill to the Top Gate. I quietly walked up the hill and into the timber where my blind was set up. I settled in my chair waiting for daylight. To pass the time, I ate a couple of granola bars and drank coffee. My insulated cup keeps the coffee extremely hot so I left the vent open, hoping it would help to cool it off to a tolerable temperature. I called occasionally just to see if a gobbler would answer me from his roost high up in one of the big oak trees. It was almost dawn when the first turkey answered my call. He was down the hill directly behind me. I thought they would be coming from the direction of the calving pasture so had set my chair facing that direction. I needed to reposition my chair to be facing the opposite direction when they started up the hill, responding to my call.

   I stood up and awkwardly turned my chair around. When I sat back down, I discovered my coffee had spilled into the seat of my chair and it was still hot, very hot, burn your butt hot. I jumped up and said a few bad words before emptying the remaining coffee out of my seat. It had cooled enough to sit down by then and I tried to get back to hunting.

   When the turkeys flew down, I could hear them a couple of hundred yards away, at the bottom of the hill near the Morman Trail. I could hear at least one gobbler as he strutted and answered my call, I could also hear hens in the area, which would not help my efforts. There was no point leaving a group of hens to come to me. I worked with him for close to an hour but could get him to move only a few yards back and forth.

   After a while, a gobbler started answering me from the direction of the calving pasture. I decided to again turn my chair around and attempt to call this bird since the other was not moving. When I stood up, I did not have to worry about spilling coffee, but the cool breeze blew through the tent on my wet pants. I discovered the back of my pants were wet from my waist to my knees. I was instantly cold. The turkey in the calving pasture seemed to come to the fence and stop, which is not uncommon. Many times, gobblers will not cross a fence or stream when they are strutting. I worked him for another fifteen minutes or so and decided I was too cold to continue.

   I went back to the house and got a hot shower. My wife and I were enjoying a cup of hot coffee on the porch when we saw the gobbler from the calving pasture as he walked up the hill directly to the Top Gate and my blind.

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