I had a red head in the red dot this morning at ~40 yards but froze on the trigger - something didn't feel right. He came in hot but literally was running past me to the field where they strut. He gave me one short-lived opportunity for a head shot, but his neck was below my line of site and literally all I could see was the top of his head.

Of course he popped up in about the only spot I didn't anticipate when I setup in the dark. It was also stupid early (~6:10 or 10 min before sunrise here) - based on the past week, he pitched down about 15 min early and must have ran to my setup. Honestly, it was still dark enough in the woods that I just couldn't tell if there were any saplings/twigs between us so I laid off hoping he would stick around or move closer in my direction.

Glad I waited - 30 min later I could see 3-4 saplings between me and him, I'm convinced the pattern would've been too scattered to drop him cleanly (if at all). On opening day in CT, about 15 years ago, I lined up on a nice tom and proceeded to harvest a beautiful 1 inch Oak sapling - I never touched the tom and he ran off gobbling at the shotgun blast. I still have that stick (with the shot in it) in the bottom of one of my totes as a reminder to myself

I waited an hour then looped around to the edge of the neighbor's field. Counted 4 strutters and only 3 hens - I had them gobbling and the hens were getting pissy, but they eventually went off on their normal travel route to the other side of the field.

All of those strutters will score 50+, and there's at least one obvious 3-4 yr old in that mix that will score in the 60's or higher. I'm the only one hunting these properties and therefore I'd like to better last year's bird from this same property, which I dropped around May 25 and scored in the low 60's.