A gobbling turkey is my second favorite sound. Whistling waterfowl wings are my favorite, but a tom sounding off from the tree or ground isn't far behind. It's a sound I never tire of hearing, either. I can often gauge the success of a hunt by the amount of gobbling I hear and I'm satisfied if I hear a serenade. Almost. My goal is still to shoot a turkey, though.
So opening morning found me accompanying a friend, Dale, to his property on the edge of the Flint Hills. It's a beautiful section of Kansas and teaming with wildlife of all kinds. We've had success in the past so I was looking forward to opening morning.
I arrived at 6 a.m. and we headed down through a creek crossing and made our way to the edge of a wheat field. A big pasture bordered it on the south and the river meandered behind us. Dale had set up a ground blind on a point where our location would find us scanning the entire field and visible from most directions.
As if on cue, a barred owl sounded off with his usual hooting routine and a turkey gobbled just as Dale reached for the zipper on the door of the blind.
"That's a good sign!" I whispered. "I think we're in the right spot."
Dale placed a strutting gobbler decoy, along with two hens, about 20 yards away in front of us. We got comfortable inside the blind and the birds, far off to the west, would gobble at any loud noise. More owl hoots, Canada geese and the occasional train whistle had numerous gobblers firing a shock gobble reply regularly.
I was armed with a crossbow and Dale had his compound bow. Although my kids have killed several deer with this crossbow, I've never killed anything with it. I've killed a half-dozen or more gobblers with my Mathews compound bow but decided to give the recently-legalized crossbow a whirl.
The morning was beautiful and a brisk 26 degrees made the morning fresh. However, little wind made that temperature plenty bearable, particularly in the confines of the ground blind. There were turkeys gobbling in a couple different directions and as day broke the hens started their chatter, too.
We called, to no birds in particular, to let them know there were other options for the morning's agenda. The birds, as they often do, got much quieter on the ground after fly-down. But we could still monitor their location with the occasional gobble and hen yelps.
It wasn't too long and Dale spotted the first visitors of the morning entering the field far to the west through a tree row. He laughed as he tried to count the birds as they filed in and he lost track. Before they were done, their numbers reached about 50 with at least 14 longbeards in full strut. Unfortunately, there were two or three hens for each tom which often makes things difficult, particularly early in the season.
Our assumptions were correct. No matter how much calling, of various kinds or not, none of the toms would venture our way. We could get a couple of the toms to nearly hyperventilate gobbling at our calls but they wouldn't leave their buffet of hens. After they paraded down the middle of the field getting no closer than 125 yards, they all eventually filed out and headed off into the pasture. We were left staring at an empty field and three decoys.
About 20 minutes later Dale whispered to "look over there" as he pointed to our right. Two more toms had entered the field following a lone hen. We started to call again and the hen yelped back and the toms gobbled. We liked our chances until two toms from the original gang came back into the field and the two toms who were accompanying the hen folded up shop and sulked to the back corner of the field.
The hen got to our decoys but didn't like the blind or decoys, putted a few times and eased off within several feet of our blind and flew across the creek. The two toms from the original gang must have realized she wasn't worth the effort and turned tail and headed back out to pasture.
So we started calling again and the two toms with the recently-vacated hen weren't out of ear-shot yet. In fact, they were quite vocal and both came around the edge of the field following the river, Both were in full strut, spitting and drumming as they inched closer, a few feet at a time. It was awesome.
The first bird came into view and Dale told me the bigger bird was in the back about 10 yards behind. I was ready to shoot the first one and he and I both knew I wouldn't wait on the second one. I tend to get a bit excited and figured I'd take the bird in hand before something went wrong.
The 2-year-old gobbler strutted towards the decoys as I lined him up, aiming at the base of his wing joint. At the shot, he jumped into the air and came down motionless, although his head was up.
"Get another arrow" Dale whispered as he saw the other tom make a beeline for the downed gobbler. I knew I couldn't reload without being seen so I told Dale to get his bow and shoot the second bird who was now pecking mine in the back of the head. Much to our surprise, my bird staggered up and flopped to the edge of the river before Dale could get his bow lined up. And after more insult to injury from his former running mate, my bird flapped across the river just behind us into some thick grass.
We waited just a bit to see if any more birds would come in. I knew my bird wasn't going far and it would be nice to see if Dale could get a chance at one, too. But it wasn't to be.
It was a spectacle for sure and the gobbling and strutting alone was worth every moment. I would have been satisfied with the just that experience but I was glad I killed a turkey. Another opening morning of the Kansas turkey season was in the books and I was anxious for a repeat performance at some point in the near future.
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