Great opening day!


Rhino

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With the Mississippi season opening yesterday, I went down to try to roost a bird the afternoon before the opener.  For the 1st time in over 30 years I hadn't had favorable weather to do any preseason listing for gobbling birds.  I went to the area where I called in some birds for my son last year.  Heard some hens sound off and a bird gobble twice at them maybe 200 yards away.  The next morning before dawn I was there setting up the DSD decoys when an owl cranked up.  The bird gobbled twice at him and it was still real dark.  As dawn broke I hear him crank up his gobbling real good (SE of me).  3 more birds gobble to my west that sound weak (assume they are jakes) and a bird gobbles behind me loud that's real close (N of me).  The bird to the N only gobbled once on the roost.  The bird to the SE was real hot with his gobbling.  When they hit the ground I began calling.  The SE bird answered almost all my calls but that's also where I heard the hens.  Could be a problem.  The bird to the N circled around my eastern side out of sight heading toward the SE bird and the hens.  He quit gobbling when he got over there.  Suddenly, I see 2 birds to the SW coming in...2 jakes.  They proceed to the decoys beating up on the jake decoy and spinning him around.  Then the bigger jake jumps on top of my submissive hen decoy.  Apparently the gobbler that had been answering me to the SE and stayed out of my sight could see the jakes because he came running in all puffed up.  Very cool!  He runs the 2 jakes around in circles around my jake and submissive hen decoy.  Finally I get a clear shot and drop him.  Now with him flopping around, the jakes gang up and beat on him for a while.  I had to watch that show.  My 1st bird of the season has am 8 5/8" beard and 3/4" spurs.

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