First Season using Mike Yingling's Calls

[wmd]

And it was awesome!  Thanks Mike for the great calls.  Mike's slate, glass, and copper calls were more than these Alabama birds could handle.  21 hunts, 15 birds within killing range.  If only Mike's calls could have made my son and I better turkey killers, we both would have limited.

My son is 11 and this was only his second year to turkey hunt.  He killed three last year, all from ground blinds.  We decided to forgo ground blinds this year unless it was raining even though not using a ground blind definitely increased the level of difficulty for us.  The first five weeks of our season were extremely frustrating as we let bird after bird get away without even firing a shot.  We were pretty much convinced that we were going to get skunked this season but still went every chance we got.  In the sixth, and final week of our season, we finally started learning from our past mistakes and managed to kill 4 birds - with my son killing 3 of them.  We killed all of them with 20 ga 1187s and Nitros.

The first one took us 4 hours to get in to gun range, but he gobbled just enough to make us hang with him.  We didn't weigh him, but he had an 11 3/8" beard and 1" spurs.



One thing we tried this year was hunting on Friday afternoons after my son got out of school.  After calling up two longbeards and letting them get away, we went back the next Friday and called up some jakes and doubled.  We doubled last year on longbeards out of a ground blind, but I think this one was more rewarding.  It was definitely more nerve wracking.



The last day of our season that we were able to hunt was a rainy one, so we chose to hunt out of a ground blind.  We were able to coax this one in to gun range around 9:30 am.  This is the biggest turkey my son has killed in his short turkey hunting career - he weighed 18 lb 10 oz, had an 11 1/2" beard, and 1" spurs.



Starting the long trek back to the truck - I love seeing the kids with a turkey slung over their shoulder!



Hard to believe the season is over, but we can't wait for next year!

[DirtNap647]

congrats on some nice turkeys

[stone road turkey calls]

 

[captin_hook]

Awesome

[Uncle Tom]

Boy, some nice looking birds there. Congrats! Now you a got a turkey hunter for sure. Most of the time it only takes one, whether it be a turkey, deer, big fish or whatever, and they are hooked for life. That is the   ultimate....you are getting him started right.

[Gold Spur]

Congrats to the both of you on a awesome season!

[tomstopper]

Congrats on some good birds....

[RutnNStrutn]

Looks like you and your son had a great season!! Congrats!!

[M,Yingling]

Bill glad the calls worked out for you guys ,,,But more importantly Congrats to you and your son on the birds with 3 kills under his belt this season he is quite the turkey hunter