Well it finally happened to me. The wife went along with me for a trip on Saturday. We hunted around and finally found a bird doing a whole lot of gobbling on the neighboring property.
I got within about 300 yards of him and started talking to him and he got all excited. I did some excited yelp and excited purrs and he loved it. He was hung up for a while but slowly moving our way. After about 30 minutes he was within 100 yards so I shut up. I started seeing bits and pieces of him in the brush. I at times could see the nice fan.
He finally came up to the fence and disappeared and it sounded like he was stuck in the fence. Later I realized he crawled under a field fence. He popped out at 55 yards and I rushed it and made a clean miss. Gun jammed and game was over.
It is the first time I have missed a bird I have called in. I missed them in the early days of stepping on birds and taking crack shots. I'm thinking it's the pressure of my wife sitting next to me. It was a fun and vocal bird. I will get him eventually. I worked him Sunday too and blew a chance at him.