On that short of notice it's kinda hard to find a traveling partner. My wife suggested I reward Hunter (my 8 year old) for maintaining all A's throughout the year in school and take him. Well since the wife suggested it, I figured it was a good idea, so when I got home from work Saturday morning, we packed our bags and struck out to Kansas.
We arrived in Kansas around 5 that afternoon and with absolutely no game plan, we immediately started scouting. We found some birds just before fly up and luckily was able to secure permission on that piece of property. After getting license and tags it was close to midnight before we finally got settled into a hotel.
The following morning was COLD and misting rain, but the birds were surprisingly very vocal. We made a few set ups and it just didn't work out. We had several birds come into range, but Hunter just couldn't get a shot. At lunch the farmer told us of another piece of property that he always sees birds in. It was a freshly burnt CRP field and I really liked the looks of it.
After about an hour of walking and calling that afternoon we sat down to take a break. Well about 10 minutes into the break Hunter says he hears a gobble. I put our snacks away, make a call and sure enough, it gets cut off! I get quite and about two minutes later I see three red heads coming over the hill. I could immediately tell the front two were jakes. the back bird had a small beard, but looked noticeably bigger than his two partners. As soon as the jakes get into range of, Hunter I cut him loose and he smokes the front bird at 20 steps. The back bird never ran and that was his final mistake. Jake or not I wasn't gonna pass up the chance to double for the first time with my son! Turns out he was a jake. He did not have a full fan but his beard was almost 7 inches and he had almost 1/2 inch spurs. Maybe a super early hatch, I dunno. Anyway day 1 in Kansas was a success!
That afternoon we went back to the original property and roosted the birds we had hunted that morning. We watched 7 longbeards fly up without a hen in sight. I had a pretty good feeling about the next mornings hunt.
We got in super early and got set up where we wanted. It was still COLD and windy, but the skies had cleared and it just felt like a good morning for turkey hunting. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, the first bird of the morning sounded off! And when he did, he started a gobbling frenzy that I will never forget. Our best count was between 12 and 15 birds all within 150 yards of us gobbling their throats out. We could see and hear several as they flew down. With that many birds on the ground I was nervous we were gonna get busted.
After fly down, 6 or 7 birds stayed hot. They were pickin up everything I was putting down and slowly getting closer. When they got to withing 70 yards I shut up and that seemed to make em gobble more. After about 5 minutes, I see the first red head bobbing through the woods, then another, then another! All of a sudden we had 6 long beards within 30 yards and they were gobbling every step they took. I was some kinda shook up and I looked down and seen Hunter visibly shaking.
I was gonna do the 1 2 3 shoot, but didn't want to cause him to miss, so I simply told him to shoot the closest bird which was about 20 yards. Again he came through with his little 20 and rolled the strutter up. Again, no birds ran and I was easily able to pick off another longbeard!
This is definitely a hunt I will never forget. Some awesome memories made with my favorite hunting partner!!
