It all started yesterday afternoon….I had to work in the office until 5 and had a sneaking hunch I knew where a large group of Tom’s were roosting and hanging around everyday as of late. It is a large 3 mile by 2 mile section with a 100 acre woods and a large creek bed that goes through it with standing oaks. In the middle of all that is the only cornfield last fall in a 3 mile radius that is not visible from the road and in the middle has a 1 acre standing oak plot!! The big woods is an old cattle pasture so the underbrush is thick to put it mild! 
So with that said I wanted to get a ground blind set up last night in the neck down area so I could view the entire woods edge and overlook the creek bottom. Well let’s just say I never did get up there to set up the blind. 
My season lasted a whopping 9 minutes. We had just crossed the high creek when above us on the tree line 3 different groups of gobblers were going CRAZY at the crows flying around and 1 set of birds was just on the other side of me and this island of oaks!!!!! We quickly tucked into the brush without time to set out a decoy or anything and first set of calls I was cut off and second try once again the entire place went crazy! I shut up on the call for what seemed like way to long and they gobbled again and I had a visual and they were slightly angling away. I laid out a couple long purrs and the rest was history. For 10o yds it was strut and gobble strut and gobble until they were 10-15 yds and I laid out the lead bird. Left bird was a longer beard but thin and the right was a 24 lbs. 9 1/4″ thick bearded tom. It was a quick hunt but one I won’t soon forget. So as we walked back joking about how that all went down I said let’s do a drive around the section and the number of birds we saw was unreal. Without thinking twice i told my buddy Dan his boy was hunting before school tomorrow.
Friday morning: Little to no sleep we had decided we would set up near a point I last saw 3 toms walk right by 45 minutes before sunset the night before banking on they would be near in the roost. We were set up and up against a tree around 5 AM to be sure not to spook any birds near us. The birds started roaring around 5:20 this morning and I can honestly say we were surrounded by 15+ Jakes and Toms including a group of Jake’s I saw the night before that had 9 or 10 in the group. Right at 5:40 a hen came off the roost into the alfalfa field and was LOUD from the second she landed! I knew it was going to be a game of get a birds attention ASAP to avoid losing the battle to her. At 1 time I could see 8-10 fans of strutted out birds in the next 10 minutes and thats when it all went down. 1 of the dominant birds in the group had noticed my 3/4 strut jake fan I had set up behind a jake decoy with hen in front of it. With a couple putts and a long purr he was coming and coming fast. He closed the gap from 200 yds+ to 75 in very little time and put on a 10 minute show. He finally got within 35-40 yds and seemed to start getting a little nervous at the decoys and I gave the green light and Drew smacked his 2nd bird in 2 years and first Tom with 1” spurs 9 ½” beard and 22-24 lbs I would guess! Congrats to him as he loves sitting out there and made a hell of a shot once again! I have to say he has put the itch back into me hunting these birds hard like I used to in college just knowing he loves learning the game and I enjoy watching and showing him just like I once did as well.
