Were you using decoys?

yes, just one hen. Twice I was sure he saw the decoy.

That does sound strange to me I've never had a bird act like that unless he saw something wrong with the setup or he had other birds he knew were in the other direction. I do know they can leave you scratchin' your head though

Now that I think about it, I have had birds take off and not understand why until discovering my calling had also called in coyotes on the opposite side of me. That's happened at least 3 times.

The thing that I don't understand is why they continue gobblin. If something is wrong they will usually putt or shut up and just leave. Maybe there was another hen that I didn't see or hear. Thanks for your input.

I'm a relative newbie to the big birds. My buddy and i had a similar thing happen. Let me run this by you. If the Tom was roosted and no other birds had flown down yet, wouldn't be odd that a hen would just "show up"? My buddy and i talked about it and maybe he was spooked by the fact that your decoy was there when it wasn't supposed to be. Again, i'm a relative newbie to this game, so i'm speculating. Something that we are going to try this year is to have my buddy sit tight under the roost, no calling-no decoy, and see if he can get one to just wander by. if they don't get close enough, move out and set up a decoy, they'd be expecting a grounded hen later in the morning.

Just a thought... good luck.