Two for Two

Some times the unexpected happens. Actually when hunting, you can almost guarantee that things won't go as planned!

When I filled my first tag on Wednesday morning, I had no expectations of filling a second tag. I knew I would only hunt one or maybe two more times before our week of hunting Kansas was over. I'd let Troy hunt the remainder of the time so he could fill a tag. I was happy to just get one and was planning on playing at the pool, sleeping in and exploring the town parks with our almost 2 year old daughter. So when the weather didn't look optimal on Thursday evening, I volunteered to take that hunting slot and let Troy have the following morning hunt.

The wind was HOWLING and at times my blind threatened to lift off the ground and take to the sky. Luckily the huge trees along the creek acted as a wind break and took the brunt of the forceful wind gusts. Not sure if the turkeys would even hear any calls, I thought, "well at least I can practice my calling." I made several LOUD calls on my box call, hoping that if anything was close it would catch their attention. After about an hour of the wind fest, things calmed down and I began to wonder if I actually had a chance of catching a turkey heading to their roost. I reached for my Colorado custom glass call and began to make some sweet hen calls. 

After a short time, I wondered if anything was down below across the creek, curiosity got the best of me as I peeked through the small slit in the back of my blind. Another round of hen calls were made and the feeling you get when someone is staring at you washed over me. I turned my head and caught two red heads just beyond a small pine tree. I ALMOST got busted but froze and hoped for the best. Legs in the squatting position began to burn as I did my best to  S L O W L Y turn my body around and sit down in my blind. Now out of sight of the eyeballs piercing through the grass, I reached for my gun and sat motionless, hoping the toms would make their way up the hill to my decoys. Finally, I could see them making their way across the top of the hill, but not trusting my naked eye, I made a clumsy effort to look through binoculars to check for beards through the grass. Yep! The one leading the group was a tom! They were now about 50 yards out and making a bee line towards the roost tree, skirting my decoys and in a matter of seconds would be out of range. As the lead tom crested the top of the hill, it was now or never! I took aim and thought, "it's going to be either miss or kill on this one!" BOOM! I dumped him and sat in shock at what just happened.

After gathering my wits and realizing I just filled both of my tags, I smiled and sent my husband a quick text that simply said, "I'm done." I hunted a grand total of two times that week... a morning hunt and an evening hunt and ended up with a turkey on each hunt. I'm still kind of shocked about it because that NEVER happens for me. We laughed later because Troy was right in the middle of changing an extremely dirty diaper when I texted him that night. He kinda got the short end of the stick. That wasn't the plan.

Roost tree to the right, blind in the middle, picture taken from where turkey took a dirt nap.

Tagged out in Kansas! Turkey #2