Relaxing in 'The Coffin Blind'

LITTLE ROCK — Several weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to Mark Robbins of Boston, thanking him for sending me a copy of his new book, The Coffin Blind.

"Now I'll have something to read during turkey season," I wrote. His book was the last thing I put in my truck at 4:30 a.m. Monday before heading to Grant County for a turkey hunt.

It was already light when I got to my hunting spot, the same spot where my son Daniel and I took a lateafternoon nap during the last day of the special youth turkey hunt. I looked at the sky and guessed that turkeys probably wouldn't come off the roost for about another half-hour. I hastily erected my Ground Max pop-up blind at the edge of a field and stuffed in a nifty little ground-level reclining chair.

This chair is great. It sits about 4 inches off the ground, folds up flat and has two shoulder straps that slip easily over your hunting vest. It also has full back support, with full wooden armrests and adjustable reclining angle. It allows you to sit comfortably on any terrain and raises you above roots, rocks and moisture. It also allows you to sit in a pop-up blind all day in superb comfort.

As the landscape brightened, songbirds began singing and flitting about. A lone Canada goose banked overhead and honked for company. I also heard a muffled gobble somewhere from deep in a distant stand of mature pines.

At about 7 a.m., a sound like that of a small jet whooshed overhead. You know how a flock of teal sounds when it flies close? Multiply that by three. It started softly and hit a crescendo right over my head.

It stopped abruptly, and presto, there stood a turkey 40 yards in front of my blind, clucking plaintively. It was big and black, but it showed me a profile only for an instant. I thought I saw a beard, but wasn't sure.

We clucked at each other, and it came to the edge of some tall grass to my left, about 20 yards away. I still couldn't see a beard, so I kept my shotgun in my lap.

The bird soon walked away, but we clucked at each other for a long time. Soon after, I called up an alpha hen. I aggravated the daylights out of her by using a diaphragm to repeat every sound she made.

The fighting purr really drove her bonkers, but she would not show herself. That aggravated the daylights out of me because I was certain she was with a gobbler. If she appeared, the gobbler would follow. Three or four other birds yelped and clucked, but the only one I saw was a lone hen that ignored my calls. The alpha hen and I called to each other for 30 minutes until she and her entourage departed through a clearcut.

It's funny how you can sense the presence of game in the woods, but you can also sense when you're alone. When I got that feeling, I took a little walk and scouted my area more thoroughly. I found other spots that looked better than my present setup. They were more secluded, including one in a pretty little hardwood bottom, but they had no turkey signs.

For reasons unknown, the birds seem to prefer my little hill above the others.

At 9:20 a.m., I turned around for the long walk back to my blind. At the Central Baptist Church Wild Game Dinner a couple of weeks ago, Jon Paul Moody, the keynote speaker, said the golden hours for turkey are between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., but many hunters quit too soon. Hens have gone to nest, and gobblers are eager for company during those hours. I wanted to get back to my blind in time for the matinee.

If I have to sit still for too long, I get bored and get happy feet. If I can stay put, the game always shows. A book or crossword puzzle keeps me occupied during the dull hours.

Also, I subscribe to a theory called "The Aura of Bad Intentions." When a hunter is in full predatory mode, he emits a vibe, an aura, that makes animals nervous. Have you ever felt uneasy in public, like someone was sizing youup? Same thing. If you're distracted with other things, your aura is neutral, so animals don't sense your presence.

That's why so many hunters wake up from a nap to find themselves surrounded by deer or turkey. It sounds kooky, but my experiences bear it out.

The wind howled as I settled into my book, and I had to hold the blind down with my left hand to keep it from blowing away. I couldn't hear anything outside, but every 10 minutes I scraped a series of yelps with my Wildcat Mountain Hunter box call, made of real American chestnut, by North Carolina call crafter Dale Rohm.

This book captivated me from the beginning. The story and writing style was a combination of Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Joel Vance and Jim Zumbo. I've never read anything like it, but Robbins pulled it off adroitly. It's one of those books you think about days after you finish it. That's the mark of a good thriller, and it's even more impressive considering it's Robbins' debut.

I was to the part where the protagonist, Brant Sherman, a U.S. federal marshal, was visiting his dad, Eugene Sherman, at a hospice facility.

Eugene, a retired game warden for the Massachusetts DNR, slept as Brant looked in on him from the hallway. An orderly, unaware of Brant's presence, poked around until she found Eugene's wallet under the mattress. As she slowly extracted it, Eugene bolted upright in bed, seized the orderly's wrist and said, "She stuck in her thumb, pulled out a plum and said, 'What a bad girl am I!' " He squeezed the pressure point in the orderly's wrist, and the wallet fell to the floor.

I chuckled and looked up. There he was, a gobbler sneaking up the hill. His head was chalky white, and the sun lit up his wattles like red face paint on a clown. Cascading from his breast was a thick, full beard.

I had recently fitted my gun with a Patternmaster choke tube. It threw dense, tight patterns at ranges of 25, 35 and 50 yards, and this bird wasbetween 35-40 yards. He did not respond to my calls nor alter his path. He was passing through, and he wasn't going to give me much time.

I aligned my green and red fiber optic sights on his breast, anticipating the muzzle jump would pull the pattern upward into his head and neck. I fired and he went down hard, but to my astonishment, he bounced up and flew straight at me. I fired again and missed, then fired a third time and folded him like a pheasant.

He was a solid 2-year-old bird, uncommon in these piney woods. He weighed 18 1 pounds and sported an 8 /2-inch beard, but his spurs were short and blunt. I have never been happier to fill out a tag.

Later, I e-mailed author Robbins about my good fortune and the role his book played in it.

"Henceforth, my little popup will forever be known as 'The Coffin Blind,' " I wrote.