I’ll try to give the condensed version of this. I flew to KC from Baltimore last Tuesday evening & we were on birds all week long. But just couldn’t quite get it done. It’s so early there, just now starting to green up & get warm in the afternoons. Turkeys are either in bachelor groups sorting out dominance or henned up from roost to roost. So we did the usual tactics roost em & start there, only one morning did that come close to working but a doe came b/w us & the Tom right after fly down. She caught our wind & blew & he turned inside out. So yesterday was my last day. We heard multiple birds off the roost but no real sessions all morning. If you look at that map we set a hen & Jake decoy where the red “x” is, the birds had been strutting in those private fields to the left. The draw below is was torn up with scratching. So we setup in the wood line facing north with the decoys to our right. Finally got a gobble about 30 mins into the set. He (red “x”) came all the way into that southeastern corner of the private field (real green ones) on the left. He gobbled good , but when we didn’t come to him he drifted away & started gobbling again but due west. I kept soft yelping but he wouldn’t really answer, just a courtesy gobble every now & then. I finally cutt excited on the crystal pot call & then cut it off with a 3 note Jake yelp, no response but got a string of Jake yelps back. It was brushy to my left toward the tip of that ridge, I got pointed that way. I could see 2 jakes slipping in at about 80 yds, then I caught a white head behind them. Showtime baby! So I didn’t call but raked the leaves with my hand & they all broke in a sprint towards us. When they got close the 2 jakes dropped below me directly south just out of sight , but I could hear them moving past. I caught a bit of movement 40yds out black , then some red. I looked to make sure it wasn’t a Jake & he periscopes his head tall to see over the brush, I could see that big snood hanging down & settled the sight on his neck. He took a couple steps to the left to follow the jakes, as soon as I saw beard he got a healthy dose of #5s. What a great end to a tough week of hunting. It’s hard when you can’t get them to play ball! Most rewarding was this was an out of state public land hunt for me on new property........very rewarding!
