article written by J.D. Huitt

With Missouri’s turkey season already over, Derek Stahlman, Jarid Clark and myself grabbed the cameras and headed out to Emporia, Kansas during the last week of the Kansas season in hopes of bagging a few more gobblers before summer started. With temperatures ranging in the low 90’s and wind gusts of 40 mph, our trip was in jeopardy of ending beardless. Luckily, our host, Mark Henson, had put in a ton of footwork ahead of us and had a number of turkeys patterned. With conditions being the way they were, we decided to just shack up in a Double Bull blind and wait ‘em out.

The first afternoon, while sitting over a cut corn field (and fighting to keep our blind from blowing away), a lone Kansas hybrid appeared on the opposite side of the field and began making his way to our decoys. What was sure to be a dead bird walking at 30 yards ended up being a scared bird flying as Derek shot directly underneath him. Although disappointing (and a little bit funny for some of us), Derek made up for his miss on morning two by dropping a nice longbeard at about 35 yards. His bird had a nice beard and spurs, but with only 6 feathers left, lacked a complete tailfan. It was obvious that this turkey had endured a rough spring.

On our last morning, we set up in the same location that Derek had killed his bird in hopes of intercepting a turkey that we’d seen on our first morning. With the wind howling and temperature rising, we were about ready to pack up and leave when Jarid spotted our turkey straight ahead of us. With the notch in his tailfan and softball-sized head, he was easy to recognize. Within minutes, Jarid had his tag on the bird that we had been after our entire trip.

This capped off what was a great season for the Three Timbers Outdoors team. In addition to experiencing some great hunting, we made a lot of good friends in Kansas. Everyone that we met and that let us hunt was incredibly friendly and hospitable towards us. It was obvious that they not only have a heart for people, but a heart for God. We were thankful for friends we made in Emporia and pray that God continues to bless them.