Mike and I went out last night and roosted the birds at the Luchtel farm.  We got in there extremely early this morning but turned out to be perfect timing.  As it got lighter the creek bottom lit up with gobbles.  No birds flew down into our field but it wasn’t long before a hen and a tom appeared on the opposite end.  Another hen came from the side and walked through the decoys.  The hen and tom accross the field then started to head our way.  They got to about 100 yards and the hen with us, went their way.  She met them and they all 3 walked the other direction.  I wasn’t discouraged because I knew there were others out there to whack lol.  Soon, another tom appeared between us and the other three that were still in the field.  He saw the others and headed their direction. Then, squared up with the other tom.  They faught for about 5 minutes, out in the middle, before the weaker one gave up.

After that the remaining tom sat out there and strutted FOREVER!  I finally decided to do a little call and then…GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!  30 yards behind us.  I told Mike not to move because I could hear him walking.  He came right beside the natural blind we were in and went right to the full strut decoy.  He strutted around for a little while before I decided to plug him with carbon.  The shot was a smig low and broke his legs.  He still made it to flight but went down across the field in the timber.  The tom that was STILL across the field just stayed there all puffed up.  We waited for an hour and a half before he finally disappeared in the timber before going to go look for my bird.  Sure enough he was laying right inside the timber.  It was a great opener and I was really impressed to see 2 toms fighting eachother and not our decoy 😉

My dad (Rex) also shot one behind his house with Brad filming.  It was great footage and he dropped him in his tracks.  Mike, Skyler and I are heading out tomorrow to hopefully take care of their first MO birds!

Shawn