Kansas Rio Grande Turkeys photographed on May 17 during the later part of the spring turkey season. The Association owner, Jon Nee, was on a land run parked at a potential lease and heard a gobble, gave a call and he tells the rest of the story below. 
I was working a list of landowners I've made contact
with over the last year. I had more land to look at than I had time. The north part of the county has a very large turkey
population so I decided to scout the area while the
turkeys were still active during their breeding period. There was one farm that didn't look good from the
road, but there were so many timbered drainages
feeding the back side I knew I was overlooking a potential secluded honey hole. The Kansas turkey season still has 3 weeks remaining but I haven't seen a sign of a turkey hunter while I've been driving the roads the last 2 days. At this time, I had my Kansas turkey tags filled, so decided to take my call and camera and see if I could make a bird gobble and at the same time see what type of terrain we were missing from the view of the road. As soon as I closed the door to my truck I heard a couple of hen yelps, so it appeared my instincts were correct. I snuck to the top of the hill and called a few times.
The hen immediately responded and after the second call I heard a couple of gobbles. I didn't have time to wait for the birds to come, so I snuck over the
hill and saw these toms working their way across the pasture. I stood in the same spot for over 45 minutes watching the toms. What impressed me most was I heard 4 to 5 other
gobbles behind them, which tells me this farm is loaded with turkeys. It's in a very remote area where there aren't any
houses and the dirt roads will be impassible when
it rains. I called the landowner that afternoon to propose
a hunting lease, but he had to run it across the man that farms the land and runs cattle. We'll just have to wait and see. I'd be honored to add this farm to the others on this map. 
P.S.: Jon took these picture and went onto the next potential lease. Our land run road miles each year typically exceed 50,000 miles and has been as high as 76,000 miles spread across two vehicles and two drivers. The cause for the mileage is more that we reject most of the land we survey than write contracts for not just for spring turkey hunting but for all the hunting we offer. | 
