Hawk Bledsoe, the author's son, heads back to camp with a fall turkey over his shoulder. He bagged it on an Ellis County property whose birds, and the patterns of their daily lives, were well known to him. Photo by Bob Bledsoe.

But fall hunting can be so easy --if, that is, you've done your scouting.

Fall turkeys are creatures of habit. In Oklahoma, they'll often leave the roost and follow the same routes and routines day after day after day. They'll change seasonally, especially during the spring, and they may change if they're disturbed around their roosts or if disturbed repeatedly along a travel route. They may also alter their behavior after a storm, cold front or other weather change.

But often they'll fly down from the roost and move along the same paths for days or weeks at a time. That makes the birds easy to hunt in the fall, as long as you've been able to watch their movement patterns and know where to set up an ambush along the way.

A few feel that it's not sporting to ambush a wild turkey this way -- that if you can't call a bird into range, you don't deserve to take him. But there's nothing unethical or illegal about it. For one thing, fall birds are unlikely to be in a call-responding mood, certainly not to the degree they are in the spring. And hunting birds this way is no different from putting your deer stand near a well-trodden deer trail through the woods. It's just hunting.

However, you can call in the fall if you like. Sometimes a little subtle calling can help coax a bird into range. Sometimes it's fun to "talk" with the birds, even if it really isn't necessary in order to kill a turkey.

However, if you choose your spot carefully and the birds follow their usual routines, you may not have to make a sound to take a fall turkey.

I bagged the tom I killed in Western Oklahoma last fall by backing up into the dense foliage of a cedar tree adjacent to a private road (not a public right-of-way) leading to an oil well site. Each afternoon a large group of turkeys had been coming from several directions and gathering in that dusty road to socialize for a few minutes before flying over a fence to roost.

I could have shot at numerous hens, which are legal in the fall in the area I was hunting, but held my fire until a nice-sized tom appeared within range.

I came close to shooting a hen that gobbled repeatedly. During a 30-minute period, two birds that I assumed were a hen and a gobbler exchanged calls again and again. One bird in a small patch of woods would yelp; immediately, another bird would gobble. A minute or two would pass, and the first bird would yelp again, again to be answered by a gobble.

I couldn't see the bird that was gobbling because it was hidden by tall grasses and a patch of young sumac. But each time it gobbled, it sounded like it had moved slightly closer to an opening where I could get a shot.

Finally, it gobbled from very close. I raised my gun. A hen stepped into view. I kept my gun raised, sure that the gobbling tom would appear right behind the hen.