| jmsdx0 |
09-26-2012 07:48 PM |
1 Attachment(s)
here is a pic of him and his bird and the short story he wrote:
Attachment 23144
One Big Tom
My dad woke me up. I think it was 4:30 in the morning. It was my 10th birthday and the very first day of my first hunt ever, I had drawn one of 75 limited youth turkey permits. Usually we have cake for breakfast on our birthday, but I had Fruit Loops because it was fast. It was really dark outside. I wasn’t really nervous, but I was a little bit anxious. My dad had gotten permission from a friend of his for me to hunt on his property and we had went up a few times scouting, we saw a whole bunch of toms so I knew it was going to be a great hunt. When we got to my dad’s friend Verl’s house, we crossed the creek using the light from his cell phone because we had forgotten to bring a flashlight. We got set up in the pitch black dark because we knew the turkeys were roosted close by but we were not sure exactly where and we didn’t want them to know we were there. My dad got the decoy all set then we sat in the sage brush for forever waiting for sunrise. The blind I was using was cool because it looked like an umbrella with a hole in it. It was good for looking through but I don’t think it would do any good if it rained. The sky started getting lighter and I was trying very hard to stay quiet. The grass was so dry every time I moved I thought a turkey would run away, but they didn’t. The hardest part was waiting; I really, really wanted to shoot a turkey. We saw a lot of turkeys, but they were hens and jakes, I didn’t want a hen. Its tail feathers wouldn’t look as good as a tom’s on the wall of our TV room. It was just barely light enough to shoot when this really big tom flew out of a tree right next to us. I got really really excited because it landed right next to our decoy about 30 yards away; I knew it was my turkey. I wanted to take it home and eat it. I slowly stood up because there was a bush in front of me and raised my gun. I took a deep breath, let go of half of it, aimed, and let go of the rest when I pulled the trigger (just like my dad taught me). The BB’s went into his head but a few went into his wings. I was couldn’t believe I got one so big on my very first day of hunting! I was so excited I was shaking. After I tagged it I called my mom and told her the good news. We took it home and showed it to the rest of my family, then my dad and his friend scored it and it will be the new state record typical merriam’s with a score of 70.750 and will be 3rd overall including the non typicals. He weighed 22 pounds and his beard was exactly 10” long, he had the longest spurs my dad and his friend have ever seen, they were 1 ½” long. My big brother and little brother were impressed, and so were my mom and sister, but I don’t think they were too happy that the tail feathers and beard would be in our TV room because my dad already has deer and elk horns everywhere, oh well. My dad and I went through a recipe book and we found one with a black walnut breading that looked really good, so the next day we used that recipe on the turkey for dinner and it tasted great. I really want to keep hunting but we are in a 1 turkey per year unit so I guess I will just have to wait for pheasant and waterfowl season to open because I can’t hunt big game till I turn 12. |
