Beginner's Luck
Well, last post I mentioned that the oldest boy (9 years old) was going to come out on his first hunting trip. As it turns out it was probably the best possible morning out in the field that a rookie could have. It went kinda like this...Wake up at 4:30am. Meet Andy and load everything up. Get out to the bush by 5:20am. Have decoys set up and settle in place by 5:45am on the south side of the bush. Where we set up was a wide gas line easement separating our bush from the next property over. Wide open field so anything crossing over can be seen.
Immediately we heard gobbling at the far end of the bush and we felt good about our set-up. Turkeys are gobbling in our bush, in a bush 500 yards or so away directly south, and in another bush about the same distance west of us. Surrounded by them!
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| The juvenile bird hanging out near us |
Around 6:20am we spotted a lone juvenile bird wandering our direction. It got shy a bit out of range so we let it be. I could still hear other birds gobbling so I thought we might still have a chance. A few minutes later I heard the noisy turkeys in our bush come down from their roost and begin their day. After not hearing any gobbles for a short time, three birds appeared in the easement, probably 100 yards away. They were coming right towards our decoys.
All the way to us they would stop and strut, gobble and show off how handsome they were. They were nice looking - three big toms. With two tags between us I knew we could only take two birds, so we'd have to maximize our chances. When they passed by us around 25 yards away, I took down what looked to be the biggest one with a loud boom. Then Andy took one. His tag was filled, too. So much action for the rookie turkey hunter to take in... He was pumped! So was I. It was so cool to hear all of that gobbling, have a single bird come around and then have three big toms come 'strolling down main street' right in front of us. And we got two of them. Awesome.
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| Two down, and a lucky bird leaving the scene |
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| Our hunting blind. Thumbs up from the rookie! |
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| A father and son photo |
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| Big birds |
Andy took a few pictures and then set to work plucking and field dressing them. Two hours, and two big piles of feathers later, we were walking back to the truck and loading everything up.
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| Plucking feathers, the 'not so glamourous' part of hunting. |
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| He's done this before. |
A beautiful morning with great weather, sharing a spectacular hunting experience with a great friend and my boy couldn't have gone any better.
Oh, one more thing...
Sunday dinner will be turkey!
