Hunted along the South Plate on a friend's place for our opener. Like many places this spring, earlier than normal warm weather has had the birds moving around and fired up lately and trail cam pictures had confirmed that there were some birds walking the river bottom in the area.
Shortly after shooting we heard a few yelps and one bird fly down. Then very frequent yelping but no more fly downs and no gobbles. She hung out in the decoys for about 20 minutes then fed in a large circle around the blind for an hour or so, yelping frequently. There was a bit of far of gobbling - a mile or so, but infrequent and not a lot of birds.
Eventually it was apparent that the far bird to our west was moving closer but not too fast. When he got to about 300 yards I told mark - 'we've got him'. Then the hen headed off in his direction yelping and he shut up once she got to him off in the trees. It seemed like she might have hosed us by doing what hens are supposed to do - go to the Tom. I called a bit and shut up, and after a bit the Tom came into view about 100 yards away strutting. He hung up for a couple minutes, but once he saw Judas - my DSD jake checking out Jezebel - my DSD hen deke - he closed the distance in a dead sprint. He postured for Judas and did some spitting and drumming before kicking his butt. While the butt kicking was going on 2 more strutters showed up in the opening 100 yards away and when they saw the commotion they sprinted in to join the fun. 3 birds at 12 yards and on the 3 count we pulled the triggers ending our Colorado draw season at 8:10 with 2 birds - one 9.5 inch beard with 1 inch spurs and one 9 inches with 1 inch spurs.
The 2 oz of Hevi 13 #6s absolutely anchored him - he never twitched once after the trigger was slapped. Will post a couple of better pics after my buddy sends them to me - this is him holding the 2 birds.
We went scouting after enjoying a bloody mary and breakfast in the woods and found a few more birds to get after in the next weeks
