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Winning the Waiting Game

With one Kansas gobbler in the bag, Tad Brown, Todd Wilson and I faced a decision: check another spot or hope that lightning would strike twice.

“This is a really good area,” Wilson said. “I wouldn’t mind sticking tight for a bit to see what happens. Turkeys always filter through here.”

Who was I to argue? But after an hour with little gobbling, the prospects seemed bleak, and it was time for a bathroom break. We left the blind, stretched and surveyed the landscape.

“It seems like turkeys always show up when you do this,” Wilson said.

Cue the turkeys. Three previously unseen hens spotted our movement and slowly rubber-necked to the fence line. No harm done. At least there weren’t any gobblers nearby.

“What’s that?” Wilson said, pointing to a dark hump just over a rise 120 steps away.

We dove back into the blind, and somehow — probably thanks to the windy conditions — the gobbler didn’t see us. Actually, it was two gobblers with several hens, and they were angling our way.

After some excited calling, three hens and two longbeards stood just steps from the blind. When the toms separated, gobbler No. 2 was down.

It was 8:45 a.m. the first morning, and my Kansas season was finished. However, the adventure wasn’t.

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