So today opened the shotgun season in Kansas for spring turkey. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I wouldn’t be carrying a shotgun though. I’d agreed to guide the younger half of a father and son who were going to open the season with us. Unlike last weekend, we would be hunting our very best spots this morning. Unfortunately work had kept me from getting down there in time to scout last night so I had to take a blind flyer based on past years experience. With two of the best spots selected The Old Man and I each headed out with shooters in tow at 5:30am.
I stopped to cut some fresh cedars and still arrived at our destination well before the first gobble. I put out my home-made tom decoy “Clarence” with a hen and touched up the brush job on the blind and still we hadn’t heard anything. We settled in and eventually heard a lone tom across the field 300-400 yards in front of us. He was in a bad spot for our current setup but I couldn’t believe he was the only game in town. About the time it got too light to move the entire draw started firing off. Crappy jake gobbles plus 4-6 toms were spread out in front of us and to our right. Unfortunately the historic pattern for our chosen spot is that the turkeys work from our left to right. I was afraid all these turkeys would fly down and work away from us, and it was now to light to make it to a blind that would be in the likely travel path.
Before long we were watching 4 toms strut 300 yards in front of us with 6-8 hens milling around. In addition, there were jakes and toms to our right we couldn’t see. I could generate gobbles but nobody seemed too interested in crossing towards us. After 30 minutes of watching this, the dominate tom in the big bunch ran two other toms off. They stopped 100 yards from the big group and started strutting. When I saw this I really leaned on them with my diapragm. One good sequence of yelping and cutting and they’d both dropped their fans and were trotting towards Clarence.
They ran up behind Clarence and postured a bit before moving around to face him. Unfortunately when they got in front of him they’d seen enough and started to walk away. Fortunately I’d brushed the blind pretty well because my shooter still had his gun laying across his lap. He was able to raise it up, take careful aim and thump the right hand bird at 33 yards. I told him to hold still and see what the others would do. The remaining tom returned to flog his flapping buddy and two jakes came running in from our right to see what all the commotion was about. One of the toms we hadn’t been able to see off on our right gobbled at the craziness. It was quite a show. After a while everyone wandered off.
While the toms had been trotting in I’d felt my phone vibrate signaling a likely text from The Old Man indicating their success. Indeed they’d also been in the middle of a big bunch of turkeys with several toms and scored on an old bird with huge hooks.
We met up and much picture taking and back slapping ensued. What a great way to start our season!
