Let me offer you a tip on killing toms. Your best time to be in the field if you want to KILL a tom, is from about 10:00 in the morning until quitting time. Here in California, we can hunt until 4:00 PM, and some of my best birds have been shot after 2:00.
First thing in the morning is exciting with birds gobbling on the roost and at flydown. However, when toms are with hens, you will find them very difficult to kill from shortly after flydown until around 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning. Once the hens wander off to their nests, those toms get lonely and start wandering around looking for a little love. Mid-day is the time to kill them.
I killed a nice tom yesterday, about 20 or 30 minutes after they flew down, but it was sorta an exception to the rule. I had 6 nice toms strutting for a large group of hens, and since the grass and brush was kinda high, I was able to belly crawl into range and killed a nice bird. I had a lady friend out with me, and it was a great morning as she got to hear a ton of gobbling on the roost, and we were able to watch several big toms strutting on their roost limbs. We got to watch about 15 birds fly down and land a little ways out of range. When I determined that they were feeding away from me, thats when I made my sneak to kill one of the toms. I'm betting he's the only bird I kill this season before 9:00.
