Youth Season Gobbler

I had the privilege of taking out the neighbor kid, Michael Parker, on another youth season turkey hunt. As we had done the previous year, we shot his gun the night before to make sure it was patterning well and then tried sleeping before the hunt. Got up at 4 am to make sure all of my stuff was collected but ended up pacing for half and hour. I texted Michael and he was doing the same so I picked him up a little early. We got to our spot and there was another truck there. I talked to the guys and they said they had been hunting there for 25 years before the guy sold it and it became public. I asked where he was going so I did not screw up his hunt and he said it really did not matter because it is still public. He was a nice guy, but I couldn't get past the Berry Blast Skoal and the every other word F-bomb.
We headed out to our spot and slowly made our way into the woods, set out the decoys and had just settled in when we heard the thunderous gobbling about 200 yards behind us...Back where the other guys were going to be...We then heard another single gobbler in a stand of timber we had past when we walked in. We doubled back and stopped in the lane because he was right in front of us still gobbling in his roost tree. We set decoys and waited. We heard when he lit down below us and he eventually crossed the river. We crawled our way towards the river edge and could see him strutting back and forth on the opposite river bank. Game Over.
We headed back in the direction of where we started and made our way to the far corner of the corn field. We set out our decoys and waited for about half an hour. I would yelp with my mouth call every now and then but found myself drifting into nap phase. I snapped out of it and conversed with Michael about our options. We had decided to get up and leave and I was in the process of standing up when I glance to my left and there was a longbeard in the field making his way towards us. I clucked and yelped and even threw in some purrs but he was having nothing to do with us. I was thinking about getting up to move again when I looked right again and even closer was another longbeard. This guy was committed. If you can visualize pulling a bird in like it was on a string it was this one. Never gobbled once but was the classic bird. He strutted and drummed the entire way and stopped only to peck at a few pieces of corn. When he finally closed the distance to 25 yards I told Michael to take the shot...nothing. "I can't see his head there is a corn stalk in the way" "Just shoot anyway is is RIGHT HERE" " I can't see his head there is a cornBLAM!" Dirt nap turkey. I did the usual jump up and try to beat the wad to the bird but it was over without a chase. He walked up to me and said "Well that went well". I laughed and he reminded me that this ended much better than his previous years bird in which Nick and I chased it down because the shot was marginal. It was time for pictures so we took our time and set up some great shots:

After taking in the field pictures we headed over to the famed stump where we had taking his turkey pictures the previous year.

As we walked out he kept asking what had just happened here. It all happened so fast but yet was in slow motion. It was a great morning in the woods and we got the chance to share it. We got back home and had to get some wood pile pictures and and Uncle Al got in on some turkey picture action. 

This was just the mornings events.



Stay tuned.