My younger brother Jake and his life long friend Austin (both from Idaho) met up with me in Kansas to pursue love struck turkeys.

We arrived at Sterling’s place on Thursday evening to scrumptious BBQ ribs and tatters…which we scarfed down so that we could get in the field ASAP to chase some turkeys that Sterling had been patterning for the past few weeks.  Sterling took me to one spot while his friend Dallas (AKA Ishmael the turkey guide as he called himself affectionately in the 3rd person) took the Idaho boys to another.  Sterling and I arrived to the designated blind and got set up…and very nice gobbler was within 35 yards and strutting to our decoys 30 minutes after our arrival.  I got the 3-bearded gobbler with the Thompson Center Encore and the rest is turkey stew.

Meanwhile back at the Idaho boys’ blind they had several strutters but no such luck and Ishmael connected on his second tom of the season in the blind across the field from the boys.

The next morning found us in the blind as the beautiful sunrise stretched out across the Kansas barley greenfield…two gorgeous gobblers strutted through with 6 hens, and it appeared that we had the perfect setup until the gobblers did an about-face and strolled off without the girls back to where they had just came from.

We hunted hard all day Friday but no such luck.  Austin chased gobblers over hill-n-dale…he found the mother-lode of gobblers and witnessed something pretty special that evening as over 100 toms put themselves to bed in the trees a few ridges (ok…more like miles) from where Jake and I were setup.  Austin had his GPS and iPhone with him, so he was able to plot the grid coordinates to the location and record the gobblers’ crescendo on the Kansas prairie as he imitated a sexy hen.  It awed us when we finally found Austin that night several miles from where we thought he’d be….thank heavens for technology.  He played the recording and we drooled and dreamed of turkeys!!  Sterling was ready to call out the National Guard to find us…but all ended well.

Sterling, Austin and Jake headed out to THE SPOT at 0’dark-30 to set up a blind and wait for turkey mayhem…plans were made and stuck too.  Of course, I slept in and went to breakfast with Ishmael…I was totally there in spirit!  3 birds were collected that morning, but as they say…Roosted isn’t necessarily Roasted!  They had to work hard for the birds before the skies darkened & threats of hail and tornados came to our north central Kansas hunting grounds.

Great weekend on the Kansas prairies chasing long beards…

Setter Feathers…