This weekend was the opening weekend of Kansas Archery Turkey. I'm a college student at Kansas State, so I hadn't had the chance to hunt yet until yesterday. I got back home to the family ranch on Friday evening, and roosted a couple of gobblers on a creek adjacent to a burned off pasture. Saturday morning I slip in before daylight and get set up in a clump of cedars about 150 yards away from the roost in that same pasture (which we had burned the previous weekend). I don't have a blind, so I just sat down in the cedars. I set out a lone Avian-X feeder hen decoy about 15 yards away, and proceeded to do some light tree yelps. He hammered back immediately, acknowledging I was there.
At first light, he pitched down with his hens, and strutted in the pasture for some time. The other Tom and a group of jakes eased off in the opposite direction. I couldn't see the dominant Tom with his hens due to a slight ridge, but they were making quite the racket, so I could tell where they were the whole time. I did a little bit of excited calling, he hammered at everything, so I shut up. About an hour after fly down, I could hear his gobble start to get a little closer, so I picked up my bow and got ready. A few minutes later, I saw his fan crest the ridge. He came over the top, saw the decoy, and slowly started walking my way, never breaking strut the whole time.
I thought I was in business because I couldn't see any of his hens, but about 30 seconds later the boss mama came over the ridge. She saw my decoy, immediately started cutting/aggressively yelping, and took off toward the decoy at full speed. In seconds she was at my decoy, puffed up, looking for a fight. The longbeard slowly worked his way in from my left, and made it into bow range. Since I was back in the cedar clump, I had a somewhat small opening to shoot through, and he was just on the edge with cedar bows still blocking his vitals. Still in full strut, he worked his way around the situation between the decoy and his highly agitated hen. When he entered my opening, he was 30 yards. That's about the furthest I like to shoot at a deer, although I practice at much longer ranges. For a turkey with a bow, I've decided 20 yards as my limit. To make the situation even more precarious, I had a gusty 20+ mph cross wind too. Ultimately I passed on the shot. His hen calmed down and they worked on out of sight. First set of the season, beautiful Rio longbeard in full strut at 30 yards, and he lives to see another day. All I can say is he's mighty lucky the regular season starts tomorrow, because if I'd have had my shotgun, he'd have gotten to take a ride home in the pickup. However, I know where he likes to spend his time, so he may not be quite so lucky on our next encounter.
All told, it was a beautiful spring morning on the family ranch, and an exciting start to the Kansas Spring Turkey Season. It got me to thinking though: I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had a gobbler evade death by the "skin of his beak". I figure y'all have some exciting stories, and I'm anxious to hear them! For now though, I'm headed back in to the woods to try and strike up another one. Hopefully I can get one stuck this time!
