We had a great turkey trip again this year, going 3 for 3 with many more gobblers found that we could likely have shot also.
My son and I roosted 12 birds including 2 big toms, 7 jakes and 3 hens the night before opener, after watching them feed and strut for a couple of hours. Before first light on the 15th, we were sitting quietly in my blind within 100 yards of where we watched them fly up the night before. Decoys were out and things were looking good. They started gobbling on their own, and with a couple soft tree yelps I got them really going. It was barely light enough to see when I noticed the tips of 2 fans on the ground, the toms had basically dropped straight down and were putting on a nice show. Over the next hour the rest of birds all dropped down, and proceeded to feed, gobble, yelp and fully ignore my decoys and calling. I didn't want to over call so mostly sat tight and got some great video of the performance. Around 6:20 they all suddenly got in line and started marching off in a different direction, so it was time for a quick change of approach. I got super aggressive with my yelping, and the entire flock stopped, turned, and basically ran into my decoy set at 25 yards. We were trying for a double, but the toms were surrounded by the hens and jakes and we didn't want any collateral damage, so waited for birds to separate a bit. Unfortunately this didn't happen until the birds had lost interest in the decoys and moved out to about 45 yards which is too far for my son's 20 gauge. We agreed not to let them walk, so my 12 gauge barked and the biggest of the 2 toms hit the dirt. Meanwhile, in another location, in another blind, my buddy was working some birds of his own...
8" beard, 1" spurs. We headed for a nice viewpoint and took a couple photos quickly, then it was off to find my son a gobbler.
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