I drove from southeast PA to just outside of Pittsburgh this weekend to join my long-time friend Jack on taking his 9-year-old son out for the youth hunt on Saturday. I was out there to film them as we were going on little Jack’s first big-game hunt. The alarm going off at 4 a.m. was an unwelcome omen after driving 4 ½ hours the night before, but I dragged myself up and got over to Jack’s house where an equally sleepy little Jack was gearing up to go out.
We piled into my SUV, with hopes that it would have its first turkey in the back after transporting many, many deer over the years. Jack directed me to the spot and we walked in under the cover of darkness. When we got to the spot we started to set up on a point in the brushy wooded cover at the base of a hill overlooking a field. Across the field a couple hundred yards away was a larger stand of woods that the birds roosted in and would pitch down into the depression in the field and make their way up to the flat where we were. We set up the decoys on a side hill nice and close at about 15 yards to bring the birds right to little Jack for an easy shot. Little Jack was using a borrowed 20-gauge pump shotgun with an IC choke that nearly stood taller than he did. Jack had patterned the gun out to 30 yards and was getting around 10 pellets in the kill zone at that range. We set up with Jack and little Jack sitting up in a bush that was starting to green up that gave pretty good cover. Little Jack was between his father’s legs and using a bipod to support the gun and help him aim. I was behind them in a hole that I had cut out of the bush with a big rock to my right giving myself and my camera lots of cover.
As light slowly crept in over our right shoulders into the field the morning was dead silent. No gobbles, no tree yelps, no fly down noise, nothing to be heard. Little Jack was sound asleep on his father’s lap. Once it was light enough Jack began a calling sequence hoping to get a response. Nothing. We sat in silence hearing nothing but the occasional call sequence or plane overhead until around 7:45. Jack could see in his binoculars a strutter about 600 yards away in a clearing across the valley with some hens, but those were the only birds we saw. Jack decided to get up and climb the hill behind us to get a better vantage point in hopes of seeing some birds. He came back and said, “Well, they’re either around the corner of this hill to our left, down in the bottom still, or not here at all.” He was confident in the spot, so we decided to stick it out for a little while longer. Not long after that I saw birds at our 12 o’clock position. One black blob turned into a flock of around 9 or 10 birds with at least 4 strutters and 2 other longbeards. They moved out ahead of us from directly in front of us at about 90 yards to our left and around the other side of the side hill. Jack called trying to coax them around the corner, but there was no answer. They came back up over the rise again chasing the hens and moved from our left to our right this time and out of sight. Jack gave me the slate call and we did some purr fighting trying to get the hens to come in. It was very clear that these birds were henned up and would not leave them.
At this point I told Jack that they would eventually give up on those hens and they knew where we were because of the calling and would come to investigate. He agreed, but we now realized it was clear that where we had put the decoys in the wrong spot and it was difficult for the birds to see them.
Little Jack had to heed nature’s call so he slowly rolled to his knees to relieve himself, just like a pro. Murphy’s law struck and as he was finishing I saw a bird strutting out in front of us. Jack struggled to get little Jack back into position and the birds were coming from our left and our front and our right. Out in front of us two longbeards moved to our left out of sight behind the side hill. Another 2 or 3 were out in front of us and all of the birds seemed to be avoiding the strutter to our right. After a few minutes the bird to our right went down over a depression out of sight taking a few hens with him. Once he was gone, one of the birds started coming in hard from in front of us making his way to our decoys. As he came in I knew we were in trouble. I could hear Jack giving his son instructions, but I could also see the bipod sliding up the gun and the barrel dipping lower and lower. The bird came into 27 yards, and I could hear Jack saying, “Are you on him?” with little Jack replying “No, I can’t see him,” as he struggled his best to raise the gun and get his eye behind the sight. After a short time the longbeard had enough and started to move away. He didn’t completely blow out as little Jack was able to keep it together and not move too much, but the tom knew something wasn’t right and eventually headed out of town.
I thought the day was over at this point and so did Jack. We decided to move the decoys and give it one last shot to see what would happen. We relocated the decoys and started to set back up when I noticed the old boss tom back up out of the depression strutting. Jack and little Jack scrambled to get back into position as I gave them directions on when to move and when to be still from my slightly higher vantage point. They got set and this bird was coming in. Jack wasn’t completely ready so I gave a few soft clucks on the mouth call and then shut up. This bird was hooked and could see the decoys and was on his way. He did not like seeing our two hen decoys with a jake with them and he was going to show why he was boss. He strutted the entire way in spitting and drumming and putting on a wonderful show. He was beautiful with the mid-morning sun glistening off of his feathers and his head burning from red to white as he got fired up. Just like all the other birds this day he didn’t gobble once, but he was coming no doubt. I was sitting back enjoying the show in my LCD window when I got a low tape warning. A mild wave of panic washed over me until I realized the bird was already within 30 yards and I could tell little Jack was right on him. I would have loved to film him coming all the way to the decoys, but I was running out of tape, so I said to Jack, “Take him now, I’m low on film.” With that Jack readied little Jack and he dropped the hammer. The bird went right down and the celebration began. It was hard for me to keep it together emotionally watching Jack swell with pride and hug little Jack after making his first big game kill. It was definitely one of my best days in the woods and I was grateful to share it with a great long-time friend and happy to make a new hunting buddy in little Jack.
The stats on the bird were 10 inch beard, 1 inch spurs, 22 lbs. His wing tips were worn down nearly an inch from strutting so much. A fantastic bird.
Congrats to little Jack and to your proud daddy!