Kansas regular turkey season opener was April 12. My dad and I both took off work to hunt that day, so i met him well before first light and we headed in to the area we expected them to be roosted. On the way there we decided I would do most of the calling since he had done the calling a week and a half earlier when my son was able to bag his first longbeard. After putting out our decoys (two hens and a half strutting jake), we settled in leaning against different trees about 20 yards apart.
Not long after the sky started to lighten I tried my first light yelps. No response but thinking i may be a little early still I waited awhile and lightly yelped some more. Still no response. Then some crows started cawing and I heard the first gobble but it was further away (and on property we didn’t have acces to) than we anticipated. That’s when I hear my dad start yelping. Not sure why he decided to take over calling I just sat back and waited. Still no gobbles answering either of us. But a few more gobbles at maybe 200 yards south of us but not in response to our calls. Then I could hear their wing beats as they flew down. My dad cut loose a series of yelps but no response to us again. Then another gobble that sounded further away but was definitely not talking to us. I was worried they were with hens moving off to the south away from us. My dad yelped again and I quickly yelped in response to him( I was hoping to sound like a competing hen), apparently that worked because that gobbler fired off and we took turns cutting and yelping back to him. He liked having two hens fighting for his attention and come in quickly, but hung up at about 70 yards and started to walk a half circle around us still gobbling back at us but not getting any closer, until we lost sight of him.
While we were interacting with that gobbler and hen and a pair of toms had started coming out way, drawn by all the back and forth. Once the first Tom was out of sight I shifted my focus to the birds I could hear coming in. I’d hear gobbles and a hen yelping loudly in the trees working our way and I started yelping back at the hen. Finally she came out into the field and was followed by two beautiful toms. They all started to move toward our decoys, until the hen stopped and started to act nervous (we think they may have seen my dad sitting against a tree not very hidden from the direction they came in). Off to the west we could hear an occasional put and the hen was looking that way. The first Tom was still over there. Quietly we started to cluck and purr until the two toms by the hen focused on our decoys again. The strutted in to 40 yards and hung up just strutting there for a while. I slowly looked over my shoulder and saw that my dad wasn’t hidden well and couldn’t bring his gun to his shoulder without spooking the turkeys. I knew I would have to shoot and he would hopefully be able to react and get a shot at the Tom. I took my shot and dropped the bird and two shot later my dad dropped the other running gobbler.



It’s been a fun turkey season. Here’s a pic of three generations of turkey hunters. It was so much fun to watch my son get his first ever turkey, and to have another successful hunt with my dad. Also the turkey I shot had a double beard, that was a first for me.

Outstanding what a Happy young man. Great pictures and hunts for the rest of you also.

Here’s one I found from my notes in 2014.

April 10, 2014

What a week so far!! Got to call a bird in for a buddy yesterday! And today I had one of the most fun, exhilarating, lesson on patience hunts I've ever had.

I normally don't post my kills until after season, but this one had a special meaning to me. It was my 25th bird!! Not a lot to some but is great for me. Add about 15 more I've got to be a witness to and it makes for some awesome times!

Today's hunt started about 30 minutes before daylight with me set up at a WMA food plot. I had good recent info that the birds had roosted in the bottom next to it the day before. Of course you know nothing ever works out like it's supposed to. I heard a bird, actually heard several, but nowhere near me!! The closest was actually in the bottom right where I parked the truck. So I packed up the decoys and camera and hoofed it back to the truck to drop all that off and make a game plan for the bird that wouldn't shut up.

I eased down the road and moved into the bottom until I couldn't go any farther (water). I set up there for about 30 minutes with that bird gobbling every 2-3 minutes on the other side of the bottom. I finally moved down to where I was directly across from him and pulled up Google Earth and figured he was in a food plot on the other side of the bottom. So here I go! A short fat man hoofing it around the bottom, being as stealthy as a water buffalo, only to find the plot empty!! After I caught my breath, I let out a few yelps and that Demon answered me from back where I had just came from! I was drenched in sweat and swore if I got the chance I'd shoot that bird twice just because!!! I even text a buddy for advice and he said get to running!! At that moment I disliked him as much as I disliked that turkey!!

Well, thank God, before I took off a hen came out and played the cutting and yelping game! I actually was able to get her in front of me and scare her off. (Got that on phone video) After she left is was back to the races!!

I only thought I was tired after the first couple of go arounds!! I finally made it back to where I marked ole boy on the map and decided I wasn't going to move until he wandered off or died from gobbling too much!!

That lasted all of about 20 minutes when I made a new decision of I'm going to kill this dang bird or spook him into the next state!! Well somehow I made it to the waters edge and could finally see him about 70 yards away strutting back and forth and gobbling every minute or so. I decided then no more calling!! Well, after 20 minutes of hearing no hen he started off down the creek bank.

My plan was to let him work off a ways, ease out in the creek to a cypress about halfway and call him back and he'd be within range!

Well, about half way to the cypress I noticed my right boot had a serious leak! I figured what the heck, if ones foot wet I might as well get the other one wet! I had to stop and catch my breath when water went over the tops of the boots. That was COLD!!

Everything worked like I imagined...except I had NO SHOT when he came back!! That dang bird walked lickity split right through my opening and stopped behind a clump of trees to start the strut and gobble process all over again!!! For 20 numbing minutes I stood next to that cypress waiting for a shot. The old adage of "Good things happen to those who wait" doesn't apply here!! I decided what the heck, I've come this far, if I keep the trees between me and him I'll eventually get a shot and be closer!! Plus my feet and legs were getting numb, moving was way better than standing! I moved my feet about 6 inches at a time until I had gone about another 10 yards. He eventually had enough of not hearing the hen and FINALLY gave me a shot when he started moving off!!! At 0720 this battle began and at 1057 it ended!! What a hunt!!!

Great story wannabe! I don’t think there is any other game species that has produced anywhere near as many entertaining hunting stories as the wild turkey. One reason is accessibility, nearly every state has a huntable population, but also the unique situations and scenarios turkey hunters find themselves in are often funny and entertaining.
The Bear Grease podcast has several episodes now dedicated to spring turkey stories and there are some good ones, if anyone wants to check it out while driving to work or something.

Thanks for the info. I do a lot of riding for my job and just finished episode 1 of their Turkey Tales. Pretty good stories.

Well I'll keep somewhat short, my son wanted to go on a two state turkey trip. Since he's 27 and newly engaged I knew my time is getting tougher with him so I jumped
at the planning of this. We hunted Kansas first and scouted like crazy, the first two photos are of our Kansas birds taken on WIHA land. We scouted a lot in Units 1 & 2 and
just didn't find anything we loved so decided to head to Nebraska a day early to scout instead of buying our second Kansas tag. We literally scouted Nebraska for 8 hours,
glassing, driving more and knocking on some doors. We ended up seeing 4 toms with 3 hens just off a public area. After scouting the public and deciding to stay there we
circled back around and that group was now heading into the public corner. We jumped out and got down to where we thought they were headed and I had a feeling I could
pull at least one of them to us. And we did and after a long day in the truck his Nebraska season was over. I had planned to hunt till 11:00 Tuesday and then head back home,
we decided to take one more dirt road loop and I located this Merriam with 3 hens. I got in front of them and had a hen fired up and it was all over in 1/2 hour. Spent 2 nights
in a hotel and 5 nights in the back of my truck camping in free areas. At 57 I can still do that? Great trip with my son that he'll remember long after I eventually go.

Bass10, I used to go to Kansas every year until it seemed every other turkey hunter in the US started going there. We would drive 20hrs straight and for 8 straight years we killed a turkey hours within arriving. We’d always take a week off and were always done within two days max. We hunted basically North central Kansas. In fact I called in a bird and killed it after it crossed the State line from Nebraska, lol.
Thanks for posting that, it brought up some great memories. And like your birds, some were buff like you’d think Rio’s would be and some were as white as Merriam’s.

I scored on a nice tom yesterday around 4Pm . Only bird I saw but It's done.

Congrats! How about a story or pics?

That’s a successful hunting trip bass10! Good work on finding the birds in public land, it can be hard sometimes. I need to plan something like that, from your story you put in a lot of work, but make it sound fun. I’d love to go after a grand slam

Yeh funny story, we got in at 7:00 and scouted all day the day before the opener, wasn't thrilled but found a couple suitable areas. Around 6:00 we pulled into an abandon
farmhouse to make sandwiches off the tailgate. I went to the corner of the property to take a dump and bam a bird hammered. I finished up and called my son over and he
gobbled 5 more times. He brought it up on OnX (he is very good with that app) and it was on a WIHA, he ended up killing maybe that bird opening morning.

You can get a map of all the Kansas WIHA hunting areas for the entire state. I used to have a contact at their DNR and she would send one every year. We found that if that WIHA had cows, it had birds. If the following year there weren’t cows on it anymore it wouldn’t be productive. The turkeys followed the cows.
Found a huge wild marijuana field out there on one. Made me a little nervous, lol.

I shot my Kansas bird in a cow pasture, interesting. WIHA now comes up on onX maps, gamechanger for todays hunting. Oh back in my HS days my bud and me would hunt his grandpas
farm. Ran into a old trailer just off the property, of course went inside and found lots of marijuana drying on cables. Lets just say I was king of my HS when we got home and leave it at that.

Lol!!!

Yeah I’ve got an app called ArcGIS Explorer that has different maps and all the Kansas fall and spring public atlas’s are on there and it has been handy for hunting WIHA for mule deer out west.

So bass10 your Kansas bird looks like an eastern and your sons is a rio, and your Nebraska bird is a merriams, but is your sons Nebraska turkey an eastern or a rio?

KS, pretty spot on, my eastern Kansas bird was about 8 miles from my sons Rio, funny thing is it came in with two of the prettiest pure Rio jakes (had them strutting for the dekes), then my
sons Nebraska was with 4 other Toms that all appeared to be easterns or Rio hybrids, his was literally shot about 1/4 of a mile from where I shot my Merriam and about all we saw on that eastern
part of the public were Merriams. Just weird how that plays out.

That is very cool. Nebraska has got it going on. Three subspecies all in one state.

Yeh our original plan from home was to head straight from Kansas to the Pine Ridge area. Even though I've heard that is an extremely beautiful area we did not want to take the 7
hour trek. I guess in our scouting we didn't realize the amount of Merriams they have to the east so we were happily surprised. If I had either Kansas or Nebraska only I probably would
go to Nebraska.