In mid-May I returned home from my daughter's best friends wedding in Kansas City arriving about 5:00PM back to my house and was showing some withdrawal signs from not being able to hunt yet that weekend...blank stare, shaky hands, you know the feeling. Deb says...you've got time to hunt , why don't you get out of here! I'm changed into my hunting clothes and in my pickup in about 2 minutes flat. Scouted my first property and there are 4 toms and about 7-8 hens in the middle of a 30 acre soybean residue field....with 15 acre wood on the east side...I know the birds are working their way south to their roost on private land I don't hunt. From where I am I have to park on the east side of the woods and make my way quietly thru about 3/8 of a mile of hardwoods to reach my only chance...the southwest corner of the woods right on the property line. By the time I get there the flock is milling around right on the property line but still on my side...all four toms strutted out. I find a tree about 10 yards inside the corner of the woods and quietly set up...the birds are about 175 yards straight west of me down the fence line. Today I'm carrying my Stoeger 3500 with Red Dot, Jellyhead and 3 1/2" Win Longbeard 6's, my best gun setup. I do my best to make some seductive yelps on my Cody 6.5 One-Sider box call...just one series. By this time the birds are filtering thru the fence to the neighbors ground and I can't see them due to some brush and tall grass. I say a quick prayer asking that just one of those four toms is lonely! After waiting about 4-5 minutes from my first yelps I repeat with one other series. As I'm setting the call back down on my leg I see a red head coming directly towards me down the fence line thru some tall grass and saplings...he's at 50 yds closing...I'm just able to start getting the gun up slowly and lined up as he clears the last of the brush and saplings and steps into the clear...all I have between him and me now is a five wire barb wire fence at about 30 yards but I can't worry about that and line up the red dot on his waddles and squeeze. The Longbeards did their job and he goes down like he's hit with a hammer. took some quick photos with the help of my clip-shot and I'm on the way back to the truck a happy camper. Tom was 23 lbs, 1" spurs and a 10" beard. It was one of the hunts where everything came together perfectly...making up for a lot that didn't this season.
