After Steve Stoltz and I pulled a rabbit — er, turkey — out of the hat, I joined the Drury Outdoors crew to hunt a couple of days at Terry Drury’s northern Missouri farm.

Light rain greeted us the first morning, so Mark Drury and I huddled in a ground blind while Terry Drury and Steve “Coon Dog” Coon filmed the action from a nearby box blind. Despite the weather, a lone gobbler hammered from the roost, flew down and started making steady progress toward us.

Within minutes, we heard drumming as the bird worked behind us. Then, it circled to our left and popped out in the field.

“There he is,” Mark whispered while filming the action. “He’s coming perfectly.”

He sure did, strutting, gobbling and taking his sweet time walking to the call. When the longbeard was about 31 steps away, Mark cutt hard on his mouth call, and the bird raised his head high.

And then I missed him. On camera. Actually, on two cameras, because Coon Dog was also filming.

As the gobbler sprinted toward a nearby woods, I looked down in disbelief and tried to explain to Mark how I’d goofed up a fabulous hunt and phenomenal video. I’m pretty sure my words fell flat.

“Well, we’ll just find another one,” Mark said.

I nodded in agreement. Yet as the wind blew and the rain kept falling, I wasn’t so sure I believed it.