There are few things better than a mess of pan-fried rainbow trout, caught fresh from a clear mountain stream. Unless it’s the sound of a gobbler over the next ridge, begging to meet up with a willing hen.

My wife, Jan, had done her part on our annual first-week-of-May jaunt to the mountains in Madison County, west of Asheville, N.C., to fish for trout and chase an elusive mountain bird — she to catch the trout and me, hopefully, to bag the bird. But after five days my turkey hunting had proved fruitless. I’d called a bird in — twice — up above Spring Creek, but was never able to get him within range. His gobbles rattled the spring woods as he walked completely around me several times, staying hidden behind little rises and rock outcroppings.

So on the last day of North Carolina’s 2015 turkey season I decided to focus entirely on Caldwell Mountain, which rises above Meadowfork Creek where Jan caught the trout. I knew there were birds there; I’d heard a gobbler well around the mountain one morning, and Ann Moore, who runs Meadowfork Campground with her husband, Billy, heard a bird gobble just up the hill behind our cabin when she came to open the campground store the same morning the garrulous gobbler was tormenting me a few miles away above Spring Creek.

I’d also spent a lot of time on Caldwell Mountain that week and had seen turkey sign — droppings, scratching — everywhere, often fresh as I returned from a couple hours hike around the mountain trying to locate a gobbler. Obviously there were hens there, plenty of hens, and where there are hens there are gobblers that time of year. The problem is, you have to compete with those same hens for the affections of the gobbler in hopes of getting him to the gun.

One particular area of activity was along an old, abandoned logging road that snaked around the mountain high above the campground, where we’ve stayed the first week of May every year for a decade or more. We come for the trout and because the North Carolina turkey season traditionally lasted a week longer than the South Carolina season, giving me an extra six days of hunting.

(That changes this year as South Carolina revised its turkey season during the last legislative session. South Carolina’s season now runs through May 5 instead of ending April 30, but I will be hunting in Madison County, N.C., that first week of May anyway. Tradition is hard to break — and we love the escape to the mountains before summer begins in earnest in the South Carolina Midlands.)

There are few things more wonderful than trout and turkeys.

On Friday night we dined on the trout, enjoying every last bit of the succulent meat. Then I reorganized my gear for the last day’s hunt. I’d spent some time late that afternoon setting up a hunting blind on the old logging road, my back to the mountain with a rise up and to the right where the road bent around the ridge. Just before dark I placed a hen decoy about 30 yards down the old road to the left of my blind. Everything was set for the next morning. All I had to do was slip in well before the first sign of daylight and settle into my hunting seat — and wait.

I had already decided to simplify things for my final hunt. I had tried every call in my vest on unsuccessful hunts in South Carolina and Georgia, and now for five full days in North Carolina. In a month of hunting I’d only heard a few gobbles, seen no gobblers, and the only bird I’d called in was the one on the mountain above Spring Creek that came, I am sure, well within range of my 12-gauge Mossberg but never revealed himself. Most of the time I had heard no gobbles save for an occasional one or two far in the distance, and they quit as soon as the sun lit the trees.

“I loaded three 3-inch No. 5 Hevi Shot shells and slipped the vest over my hunting jacket, then headed down the logging road, feeling my way along in the dark.”

So on Friday night I emptied my vest of all the calls I’d been using, save for the new John Tanner Crystal Clucker I’d acquired earlier in the season and my old standby: a well-worn Lynch’s Model 102 box call that had proved to be the death of many a wily tom over the years. My plan was to slip into the blind well before daylight and wait to see (and hear) what happened once the sun rose over the mountain. No owl hooting, no fly-down calls; just wake up with the woods and hope.

I set an early alarm and took my time getting into my camouflage while I worked on a full pot of black coffee. Once I was ready I eased out the door, making sure not to awaken Jan, and slid my Mossberg and turkey vest into the truck. I finished the last cup of coffee as I slowly made my way to a parking spot well up the mountain. I loaded three 3-inch No. 5 Hevi Shot shells and slipped the vest over my hunting jacket, then headed down the logging road, feeling my way along in the dark.

I knew the blind wasn’t far ahead when I almost tripped over my decoy in the darkness. I slipped into my seat, laid the shotgun across my lap, and waited. A few songbirds began to chatter softly before first light, the singing growing louder the lighter it got on the mountain. I even thought I heard a soft hen yelp a time or two, but it seemed a long way off.

A rooster crowed far down the mountain in the backyard of one of the houses across Meadowfork Creek from the campground, then another and another. The sound rose up the mountain like the chickens were just over the ridge, but the crowing got no response from a gobbler. Neither did the cacophony produced by a flock of crows that hovered over the woods for a while, cawing at something they did not like.

After a while I pulled out Tanner’s Crystal clucker and made a few soft clucks on it, but received no response. I followed this pattern for the next couple of hours, clucking softly on the crystal pot call and waiting 10 to 15 minutes before trying again, all the while watching the mountainside and up and down the road for any sign of a gobbler slipping in on me.

I hoped being subtle would be more productive than active calling, which had not worked all season long, but by mid-morning that tactic had also produced fruitless. I was about to decide my season was going to end the same way it began — unsuccessfully. Then, down in the valley, a dog in the backyard of one of the houses along Meadowfork barked at some disturbance. Just over the ridge that ran diagonally from right to left down the mountain, some 80 yards in front of me, a bird gobbled!

I grabbed the crystal call and ran a series of excited clucks on it. The bird gobbled again!

This went on for 15 or 20 minutes. I’d cluck and he’d gobble just over the ridge. If I did not work the call for a couple of minutes he’d gobble to see if I was still around; when I clucked in return he’d gobble again.

Then he did something a lot of gobblers, especially older birds, do when you are trying to call them in: He began walking down the mountain, following the ridge line and going away from where I sat. The natural inclination for a gobbler is to have the hen come join him, not the other way around. He was moving away, earnestly inviting me to come with him. I had to do something to change his mind, so I pulled out my old Lynch’s box and ran a three-note yelp series on it. The bird double-gobbled.

I laid the box down and never made another call on it.

The next time he gobbled I could tell he was well on his way back up the mountain. When I clucked he gobbled, getting closer each time. Then he suddenly hushed. I knew he was close but couldn’t locate him. He had come up the ridge in front of me, staying just on the other side and out of my line of vision. I kept searching the ridge top for a sign of him slipping over it to come to me. But I could see no movement through the brush or across the open spots.

Older, experienced gobblers will not come straight in. They usually circle the caller, often coming in from directly behind. They will check out the “hen” to see if there is a less vocal gobbler with her that he must fight for her affections, or if there is a jake or two traveling with her that he will need to whip as part of the mating ritual. But I was backed up against a steep bank along the back of the road and could not see up that part of the mountain.

Then I felt the hair on the back of my neck begin to tingle. Slowly I moved my eyes right, looking up the logging road towards the curve around the top of the ridge. There he stood behind a fallen log, staring straight past me at the decoy down to my left.

I pushed the button to activate the EOTech sight on the Mossberg and waited. Suddenly, the bird jumped over the log and ran out through the woods in front of me. I brought the shotgun to my shoulder but he was moving so fast through the trees I couldn’t catch up with him. When he went behind some thick brush I moved the gun barrel to the left, directly towards the decoy, and waited — for maybe two seconds. The bird popped up on the road about five yards beyond the decoy and made a lunge towards it — just as a load of No. 5 Hevi-Shot headed his way.

The bird crumpled and fell in a heap. Then, in one last desperate attempt to survive, he rolled off the side of the road and down the mountain.

I ran to the spot and could see where his tumbling had bent the grass on the way down, but I couldn’t see the bird. Nothing to do now but climb down — and carry that heavy shotgun in case the bird was not dead and still able to run.

Grabbing saplings and limbs for support along the way, I slid down the hillside, finally coming to a stop about 25 yards down from the road. I walked a few more steps before spotting the bird rolled up under a bush. Then I had to climb back up that steep hillside, carrying the gobbler and my shotgun. Not an easy task even for a young man, and I have put a lot of hunting seasons behind me. I was gasping for air by the time I crawled back up on the road, but felt elated that my season had ended on such a high note. I mentally gave myself a high-five as I lay in the road until my heartbeat gradually slowed to a normal rhythm.

The author and his mountain tom, hard fought and sorely won.

Back at our cabin, I weighed the bird on a portable scale at 19½ pounds. His beard, paintbrush thick, taped at just over 11 inches, and he sported 1 1/8-inch razor sharp spurs. He had obviously had an active breeding season — his wingtips were worn off square from dragging the ground while strutting for his harem on Caldwell Mountain.

Success, which had been elusive all season long, had come the morning of the last day of hunting season. I’d hunted three states — from the South Carolina Lowcountry swamps, to the woodlots and pastures of the South Carolina and Georgia Piedmont, to the steep mountainsides of western North Carolina. Patience and perseverance finally paid off.

I’m just glad something made that dog bark.