Video Clip: Ray Eye, locating birds with his award-winning owl impersonation.

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By Bill Heavey
Call, commands Ray in the half- light of a late April dawn.

Putting striker to glass, I scratch out some soft yelps and listen. Silence. Lots of it. A whole truckload of silence. A bunch of turkeys gobbled in the distance when Ray owl-hooted with his voice 15 minutes ago. It was an amazing hoot, born deep in his chest, a place normal humans have no vocal organs.

(I will not learn until after returning home that he was a hoot owl national champion even before he held that title in turkey calling.) Since then it's been a funeral of a morning.

"Again," whispers Ray. "Not like you're the ugliest girl at the dance. Call like you're horny. Go on."

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Calling Tip: How to roost a tom
"Your best shot at killing a gobbler is to be the first hen he goes to in the morning. That means roosting him. And I don't mean knowing which holler he's in. I mean knowing which tree he's in. A bird will almost always retrace the route he took to the roost in the evening when he flies down the next morning. I roost him in the evening with hen sounds so he's got all night to get horny. I use orange flagging tape or my GPS to mark the spot, and I clear it of debris before I leave. Then I'm there and set up long before first light the next morning."