I played a guessing game with this guy for almost a month as to which side of the field he was going to use to strut on. He never really had a pattern I could pick up on. He would gobble on the roost but would go completely silent once hitting the ground and totally ignore all my calls. So yesterday morning I keyed in on the hens and where they roosted with the hopes of maybe they would drag him in. Set up about 60 yards from where I knew they were roosting and let them know I was there with some very soft tree yelps. It worked. The lead hen flew down right onto my decoy with the rest of the hens. 12 of them total. At this point I hadn't heard a single gobble in my area. The lead hen came up to my decoy and let it know she was boss with a long purr and wing slap and then moved off 50 yards out from me with rest of the hens and fed. I let about 10 minutes go by and did some very soft yelping, clucks and purrs. I was watching the lead hen make her way back to me when I heard the tom spitting and drumming. He had heard me and spotted my breeder decoy and was coming in. Only thing was I had a very small opening in the brush for a shot on him because of the angle he was taking requiring me to move my gun a bit. All I could think of while doing that was "24 eyes watching you bud"..lol. He came into the opening and I let loose a load of Longbeard #5s at 35 yards. Dropped him like a ton of bricks. It was a great hunt and satisfying due to the hunting this year here in Kansas being pretty tough. It has stormed almost every huntable day I had. Final stats 22lbs., 11" beard, with 1 1/4" spurs.
(http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j416/Delaney37/IMG_1264.jpg)
Very nice, congrats!
Congrats!
Congrats on a mission accomplished and nice bird at that.
Congrats on a fine gobbler.
Very nice bird. Good hunt. Congrats.
Congrats! Nice Turkey
congrats!
Good job
congrats!
Nice bird
way to go!!
Nice job
Congratulations!
congrats
Congrats!! Weather in KS certainly made hunting hard this year. Hopefully it won't adversely effect the hatch.
:icon_thumright:
:funnyturkey: Nice bird, Congrats
(http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j416/Delaney37/20150516_123242_resized.jpg) (http://s1084.photobucket.com/user/Delaney37/media/20150516_123242_resized.jpg.html)
Although I only filled one tag this year here in Kansas this tom will be a special memory. Thanks for all the congrats. Above pic is of a nasty spur wound I found when dressing him. No other marks on him except this. Not even any ticks. He was a tough ol' tom!
Congrats on a nice bird! Also nice job sticking with him through the season. Perseverance does pay off.
btw Its better to have that spur mark in him rather than in you.
Bill