After some crazy travel and arriving in Missouri to find out my turkey gear and bow where still in Minnesota, Logan and I finally arrived in Topeka, KS at 5:15 AM on Friday, April 5. After saying some quick “Hello’s” to the Bale’s family we piled into Nick’s truck and drove to the site of an urban hunt Logan was drawn for.
Nick had scouted the field we would be hunting for the past couple of days. Each night Nick scouted the field it was loaded with birds. We arrived at a blind which Nick had setup after dark the previous evening. We settled in well before first light. It was cool, clear and we had a West wind blowing 5-10. Right at shooting time we could see the silhouettes of roasted turkeys at the far south end of the field. Shortly after that birds flooded into our field. Logan got to experience a little bit of everything his first morning in the turkey blind. He saw plenty of turkeys (and other game), got to see birds strut, gobble and take a shot. The only bad part was his shot missed. We can chalk the miss up to some poor shooting stick placement from the guides!
After a quick lunch and nap we got back into the blind around 1:30 in the afternoon. We moved the blind about 100 yards further north after our morning hunt. It was warm and the wind was absolutely howling in the afternoon. Logan caught another nap on the floor of the blind while Nick and I kept watch. Finally around 5:30 PM turkeys started working back into the field.
Around 5:45 PM we had a Tom working into our spread from the north. Just as he was about to commit to our spread the boss bird on the field saw what was taking place and wasn’t going to let anyone have first crack at any ladies on his field. The boss bird came charging in a spooked the smaller bird off.
With the boss bird concentrating on the smaller gobbler Nick and I were able to move Logan to East facing window. As Logan prepared for the shot a large Kansas wind gust hit the blind and almost blew the blind away. I quickly dropped to the floor and pinned the blind back onto the field. Once I secured the blind I looked up to see the Gobbler walking inline with Logan’s gun barrel. I told Nick to stop the bird at which point Nicky talked some sweet turkey love and stopped the Gobbler in his tracks. Logan took aim for a couple seconds before letting his 870 bark. The big bird rolled over like a ton of bricks and the celebration began!
Logan’s bird weighed in at 23.5 pounds, had an 11 inch beard and 1.25 hooks. That is one hell of a first bird!
