swampbuster

Great pic Phil and congrats on being a grandparent!

swampbuster

Sorry about your misfortune blackheel. Hope you get rewarded on your next hunt.

swampbuster

We get to our spot Saturday morning and start walking down this logging road to where I have heard turkeys before. We stop and listen and hear one way off in the distance further down the logging road. Buy the time we get close they have already flown down and were are trying to play catch up. We finally get a little close call to them and not much response. We keep walking down the road and we are within about 150 yards of one. We get set up and I call and he responds. Call back he responds, that's when I usually start giving him the silent treatment. Next time he gobbles he is much closer, and I can hear him spitting and drumming. Instead of coming up the road he starts coming from below us. I get Halle situated and we are waiting for him to come on in. I look down the Forrest road and I see a white head pop up out of the ditch. At this point he is at 20yds, with the gun pointing to the left. He steps behind a small pine and I swing her gun in the right direction. Now he is at fifteen yards at full strut, he is right behind a small tree top that had fallen down. I told Halle to get on him( up to this point there is way to much movement as you can imagine with a young youth hunter) she says she can't, i said what you mean you can't you got to. Now he is at 12 yds. At this point the turkey knows something is not right and is seeing and I am sure hearing me try to give instructions. He starts head bobbing and turns and is walking away, and I tell Halle you got to shoot, you got to shoot... BANG.... turkey flies off down the hill and pitches in a tree several hundred yards away. I walked up to see if I could see any feathers(not one) I came back and she is crying. I calm her down and tell her that it's okay and that I missed the first turkey I had ever shot at and I was a lot older than you are.look at my phone its 7:00. We needed to be leaving by 7:30. I sat back down with her and sat her in my lap and told her how proud I was of her. I told her look at that pretty sunrise and look at the beautiful trees and birds chirping. Then we both prayed and thanked the Lord for the wonderful morning he had given us. I stood up text my wife that she had missed one. Pushed the send button and I heard someone whistle, so I whistled back so they would know where we were. I heard a low voice say we found your turkey, and I wasn't really sure if I heard what I thought I heard. Halle didn't hear it either so I said lets go. As we get closer the roller coaster of emotion is starting to catch up with me. We walk up to Dad, grandad, and daughter/grand daughter. He shows me the turkey, and I just lost it. Halle then sees her turkey and is so excited yelling I did hit it, I did hit it. She looks at me and asked if I was crying, and then she had to calm me down. They said they heard us shoot and thought they heard the bird crash. After many thanks and a short conversation with the other hunting party turns out the father works with my wife. Go figure. No way we should have pulled that off. We both thanked the Lord for how everything turned out.
The turkey weighed 20lbs 6oz, 10.5 in beard, matching 1" Spurs.

swampbuster

Here is our picture that the other hunters were kind enough to take for us. You can see the bald spot on its back. The scene of the crash was covered with feathers.

Phil from Maine

That sounds like a nice hunt.. Congrats to your daughter!! I bet she is some proud of getting her first bird! At 20lbs. that would be super first bird for anyone!!!


Thank you..

Phil from Maine

I am sorry to hear that blackheal! Hopefully you will be getting back out there to enjoy a decent hunt..

swampbuster

Anything new from the mods on our missing team members Phil?

jepcho

Congrats to you and your daughter swampbuster!! That is a great bird and sounds like an amazing hunt!

jepcho

Well today is opening day here in Iowa and my dad has a tag for 1st season so we went out this morning. Got setup really tight on some birds on the roost. The hens pitched down right in front of us, one gobbler pitched down about 55 yards out and then the closest gobbler landed at about 35 yards. He needed to take one step towards the hens and my dad would have a clear shot. Instead he went into full strut, turned away from us and walked away in a straight line, turned the corner in the field and was gone. The hens and other tom followed. Never seen anything like that before. Anyway, we hunted till about 1 then I had to head home. He is out hunting now and if he doesn't get anything this afternoon we will be back out in the morning.

swampbuster

Thanks Jepcho! It was an amazing hunt. One that we will remember for the rest of our lives!!