Guys what a great opening morning! Got my buddy his first ever bird and 3-3.5hrs later got one for myself! Had my decoys beat up and missed the show locating one, but it worked out anyway.
7:45 buddy kills a solo gobbler about 100 yards from the decoys after abandoning them to chase 3 we heard. We was making our move toward the 3 when a bluejay made a noise and the solo one gobbled 60-70 yards out. We hit a tree and after a few calls my buddy's bird was 20 yards and got the boom flop.
Fast forward to 10:00 we are still hunting me one and loop back to pick up my decoys. We round the trail and I say hey brad is that a bird or my decoy and then his fan opens! We hit a tree and I do some calling. He gobbles a bit and leaves. 45 minutes of butt scooting and crawling following this bird about 100 yards to watch him strut with what was with 2 more gobblers around several hens.
They go over a ridge and I crawl to the crest of it and set back up and inch slowly to look over and there's a whole flock. I get ready and he's about 35 yards away strutting away from me. He breaks strut and lifts his head up and gets the boom flop.
Now back to the decoys that we left there...when we rounded the curve and seen him strutting there it was about 75 yards away. After a long time of slowly getting there after he left I seen he had attacked my Primos Gobbstoper jake and dented him all up and had either mounted or attached my hen decoy because she was knocked over also. We had missed the "show" by a minute or two at the most from watching it happen. But it worked out anyway