RE: how do I get my girlfriend to shoot a bird
Wow,
What a bag of worms you have opened on this question! And, what a great question it is! You asked for our two cents so I'll give you mine.
Sharing things together with the one(s) you love is one of the main reasons we are in this sport to begin with (whether we realize it or not).
I won't bore you with my particular story, I'll just say that my wife turkey hunts with me but has absolutely NO interest in any other hunting.
I'd just be aware of the following - try to involve your girl in as much as possible about turkey hunting without over-doing it. You know her better than all of us, if she is interested and wants to move on, you judge that, and give her more. If not, well then maybe you have to back off and try again another time. Ultimately, whether she decides to go for it or not, thats up to her.
Don't be to overly concerned with the right way to do things or the wrong way, again thats between you and her.
OK - I'll tell you some of my story - my wife wanted to try it out (turkey hunting) and I had her shooting skeet and sitting down and shooting at a coffee can while I was calling (the can was the turkey) and she did great, I never thought she would be able to pull the trigger on a live bird, but oh was I wrong. She shot a jake the first trip we took (3rd day of hunting) and insists on going on 1-2 hunts with me each year from now on. Did I do the right things? Nope - I showed her turkey hunting and she decided for herself that she liked it............fact is, I really didn't have much to do with her decision.
One last bit of advice - and this is tough for us die-hard turkey hunters - try to involve other things in the hunt rather than balls out hunting. For me this is an easy one cause the wife likes trout fishing and is also a botanist. My hardest thing to do when we go out is keeping her focused on the the hunting......................BUT - I will say that we have climbed more than one ridge, called, no answer, she gets interested in some stupid plant or flower, we spend 25-30 minutes looking at it and talking and the next thing you know we hear a gobbler sound off somewhere to go chase. If she wasn't with me, and if I didn't take some time to stop and 'smell the roses' we would have never heard that bird. To date we have harvested three birds this way! Damn she is good!
I think thats about 2 cents worth.