I was fortunate enough to harvest an opening day bird in Virginia (20.02 lbs. 10" beard and 3/4" spurs), before heading to Nebraska and Kansas to hunt Merriam's and Rio's. Once in Nebraska, my uncle put us right on the birds the first day, and he and I harvested two really nice birds. Mine had Merriam's characteristics and my buddy's had Rio blood in him. Mine (22 lbs. 9.5" beard, 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" spurs) buddy's (22 lbs. 9.75" beard, and 1 9/16" spurs). Off to Kansas to hunt some more Rio's, and I had my trip cut short by a death in the family, but before I left to come home I managed to miss a really nice one about an hour before I had to leave to get to the airport. Coulda had 3/4 of the slam in 8 days! My buddy stayed a couple more days and killed another Kansas Rio.
Got back home to the family and took an opportunity to reflect on some things and there's no better way to so that than get out and do some turkey hunting on a piece of property I had never hunted before. I was greeted by two nice longbeards and three jakes that morning, and harvested another nice bird for my second VA bird. (18 .60 lbs. thick paintbrush 10" beard, and 1 1/8" spur and broken 5/8" spur).
Can't wait to see what the next couple of weeks holds in store for me.
Congrats all around