I took a vacation day from work for the Kansas Opener yesterday and set up about 5:45 AM on the north side of a patch of woods overlooking an 80 acre soybean field. This has been my go to opening day spot for three years now. About 6:30 I hear gobblers start firing off...two to my west (left) about 200 yds, some behind me on ground I don't hunt and some north about a 1/4 mile...so far so good! I had one hen decoy set up about 20 yds in front slightly left. About a half hour before normal flydown time I see a black spot about 200 yds west...almost too dark to see but I keep watching and it moves, it's one of the toms. So far no hens audible and I wait. After about 15 minutes the one tom down is strutting so I do a tree call. A bit later the second tom flies down about 150 yds west of me. I use my new Spring Creek Calls padauk over black walnut longbox and do a couple of series of yelps to get their attention. The field I am in sits about a foot and a half lower than the field the toms are in so they can't see my decoy yet. Next a lone hen comes in from area the toms are in and feeds about 20 yds north of my decoy. I cut and yelp a bit on my Lonnie Sneed Hot Hen Slate and the toms start to move my way and end up in a nice fight. The whipped one heads back south into the woods and the "winner" starts moving towards me...I'm set up perfectly as I'm right handed and he's coming from my left...finally he gets to the edge of the field he's in and sees my decoy, comes out of strut and walks towards the deke...my gun is up and at 30 yards I putt and he looks up and I fire...he goes down like a ton of bricks and hardly flops. Using my 935 Mossy , Ballistic Specialties Angle Port Choke and 3 1/2" Win Longbeard 5's.
As he approached I could see he had a fine thick beard, but was let down when I recovered him and at least a third of his beard was laying on the ground under him...I had shot a bit low apparently. Still he had a 10" beard, 1" spurs and weighed 23 lbs. Great opening morning hunt.
