A few weeks ago I was invited down to a turkey camp in southern Iowa by Ross Lage whom I have gotten to know through church with Rachel. This was the weekend we had decided upon and I asked them if my brother-in-law-to-be was invited as well and he surely was. Austin has just started hunting and this was his first ever hunt. We got down to the cabin late Friday night which included forging a creek and copious amounts of mud; with the Buick. It was a primitive camp with outdoor plumbing, no running water, and only a generator for electricity. I knew right then this was my kind of camp! We attempted a few short hours of sleep before heading out in the morning. Austin and I headed out at 5:30am knowing little to nothing about where we were. We got to the top of a hill and set out our decoys. There was nothing going on up on this hill and we could hear gobblers behinds on an opposite ridge. We made our way down the hill and got on a hot bird. We crossed a creek and it just never panned out. We headed back to the cabin to recollect ourselves and lose some layers as it was much warmer than expected. We headed back to the top of the hill where we set up originally and laid out in front of a big downed tree. I grabbed the box call and tried to make the most non-turkey sounding calls possible as I have heard that works when all else fails. Austin asks me for the water bottle, takes a swig and puts the cap on. We then hear someone coming up the trail behind us so I swivel around to see who it was. I turn my head to see three jakes at about 8 yards. I slowly turn back to Austin and whisper that he needs to grab his gun there are turkeys right behind us. He turns a little to his left and couldn't see them. I told him to shoulder his gun, swing, and shoot. This was about as vague as I could possibly be for the new hunter. I laid my gun down and as we are sitting right next to each other, I crouch down basically in his lap and he swings his gun over my left shoulder. I watch as he finally sees the bird and even his eyes told me he couldn't believe how close they were. It was then a complete daja vu moment. "Shoot him" "I can't there's a branch in the way" "SHOOT ANYWAY" "I still can't BOOM!" I turn around and see a turkey flopping. I run over and pick it up and it is Austin's first turkey. He just sat at the stump and didn't say much. I asked him what he thought of the whole thing and all I got was "Well, that was...wow." It was unanimous though that he could do that again in the future. We took some pictures and in the process noticed the two gobblers that were on the opposite hillside. We sat for another half hour but that didn't pan out either. We headed back to the cabin for breakfast.
Specs were classic jake: Nubs for spurs, 4 inch beard 14 pounds 3 ounces.
After breakfast the guys were working on their shed and Austin and I cleaned his bird when we heard gobbles up on the ridge where we just were. I high tailed it up there to see what I could do. I got to the corner and there was a big gobbler in the field across the cattle fence. I didn't know that I could indeed shoot across the fence so I held back. I crawled into our spot from earlier and waited for awhile to see if that was indeed the bird i had heard earlier. Then there was a thunderous gobble to my left and I knew he was right there. Instead of doing what smart people would do, I decided to go after him. I got about ten step and I could see him strutting in the lane at about 70 yards. I tried literally crawling closer but only closed about 15 more yards before I was busted by one of the other four gobblers with him. I took one shot, and nothing happened. I took another shot and the bird stumbled but was unscathed. I took another absolute hail-mary shot to no avail. At this point I knew I was screwed so I headed back to camp for a nap.
Stay tuned
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