This bird came from the roost gobbling and I thought my buddy and I had him easy then he got within 200 yrds of us and 5 hens and a jake flew down. I thought we were done at that point. All of this started about 6:10am. Then the 2 domenent hens kind of picked on the other three and 2 went back into the timber and the other one came up to the pond that we were sitting about 50 yrds from. She went across the pond dike and back into the timber. The jake made his way over and man was he tempting, he had a good 5-6 inch beard on him but i thought it is all or nothing again for me this year. The tom worked the 2 hens about 100 yrds out in front of us and then finally 1 gave in and got to watch a breeding show. Pretty entertaining if you have never seen it before. After he was done she slowly worked her way back into the timber. While all this was going on giving soft purrs and yelps just to let him know that we were still over by the pond. The other hen made her way to the pond and then finally he came up and took a peak at our decoys and obviously not very interested because still on the tail of the hen. She came across the pond dike and then about 10-15 min after she did and him getting a drink here he came. It was a 50 yrd shot from the blind. I thought all i could do is miss, at that distance they look the same size of the bead. So i let the gun go he went on the other side of the pond dike, so I ran up to the dike and a bird flew off like i didnt even graze it. So bummed out I started picking up my decoys and my buddy says you hit that bird way to good for it to be flying like that and he walks up there and he is swimming his way out of the pond with his good wing, so he has to shoot him again. Finally got him at 0830. Well here he is 25lbs 12inch beard and 1 1/8" spurs
