Redemption on public land

[bigriverbum]

Youth hunt with nephew. He harvested a 28lb monster with me last year. The day started in the low 40s and drizzly. We walked out a promising ridge only to hear multiple gobblers in one spot about a mile away. We only sat for about 30 min. and he wanted to go back. Luckily we ran into an old teacher of mine(walking his dogs) who said where we heard the gobbling was the usual spot.  We decided to get down into the valley and walk on flat land.

3/4 mile walk in we hear gobbling both north and south.  It's pastured woods in the valley so moving was dangerous. Working the bird to our back we crawled through a rocky ravine to get to a place where I figured he'd come downhill(logging road in thorn infested hillside).  Soon the sun comes out and my nephew sees a hen in the field to our backs. We keep crawling up the ditch and find a downfall log to hide behind just inside a thick fence line. We watched that hen for an hour. Then we see a bird gliding down from the hill and land at the top of a cottonwood. It sat up there 10 minutes before coming down to the field...... Hen. We watch them for 20 minutes hoping they'll work as decoys. 

To my right i see something charging. I somehow see it's a jake barreling along the fence line at the hen's. I alert my nephew and he gets the .410 up. I get the bird to stop at 10 yards right in the open space in front of us. He shoots and the birds run off. I didn't realize the battery was low on the red dotd. I checked it in the morning and it looked good. In the bright sunshine it was invisible. He got emotional, but we had a long talk and he agreed it was my fault lol. I learned that a backup battery in the car isn't enough. He missed high as he said he used the barrel bead to aim. I told him if that ever happened again, we don't shoot.

Run to wal-mart and get batteries and snacks. Back to the same spot by 11:30. Working our way close to the field there's more birds. 2 hens and a jake, same ones? We spent an hour sneaking up on them using the sparse thorn bushes and trees to hide behind. We got to about 100 yards and they all casually walked up the valley. That's twice birds have been out in this field and against the far side. It's a v-shaped field so lets sit at the apex of the "V". that way anything coming from either side might go by us

We set up against barbed wire with only 3 8" trees to our left and a 3 panel pop up blind in front of us. Sun blasting down.  I alternated between a woodhaven toxic orange and a Tony Ezolt wingbone.  The wingbone gets the response of a hen to our right. About 2pm i used the wingbone again and was going to give it 10 minutes before we left. Within a minute my nephew sees birds to my left. I lean back in a panic and get stuck in the wire. He sees them for a few minutes. they ran out of the far hillside and crossed a thin field, went into the ditch and flew up a 15' bank into our field. I finally see red and am talking to him when to shoot. They're coming in pretty fast and looking hard for that hen. I keep saying don't shoot. I don't want any ricochet off the tree to hit me as i can't see his barrel from where i'm laying. They're getting in range and round the point of the field and they don't see a hen. getting spooky. I tell my nephew if you can lean to your right and blatantly clear the tree go ahead and shoot. BAM! bird down at 40 yards. after the morning miss i told him at least the bird will be a tom next year. as we're walking out to the bird he says "no tom's aloud in this field!" LOL

So his first public bird/field shot. I'm terrible at judging distance in the open so we discussed that was absolute maximum distance with that gun in the open. we even took a picture at the spot 50 yards away on the other side of the field where he missed that morning. Only a jake and half the size of his bird last year, but he was incredibly pumped and it was my favorite day hunting ever. we talked the entire 30 minutes back to the truck. he got a thumbs up from a passing car

we were behind the skinny trees right against the thick stuff right behind him



the rotting log we sat at in AM. the exact spot he missed the 1st bird



thanks mr. ezolt

[bigriverbum]

sorry for the wall of text. a lot happened leading to the shot

i'm off to cook the thighs. he kept the breast

[Ozarks Hillbilly]

Congrats to the both of you

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[CAPTJJ]

Well done.

[JeffC]

Good read, congrats to the young man

[b wilt]

 Sweet!!! Congratulations!!!


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[Muzzy61]

Enjoyed the read. Congrats to the young hunter and way to shake off the earlier disappointment.

[MISSISSIPPI Double beard]

Congrats to the young man.

[Turkeyman]

Love to see pics and stories of kid's successful hunts.

[Yoteduster]

Nice job..Congrats!

[tomstopper]

Good job getting it done. Congrats to the young man and you as well

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[bigriverbum]

my sister is terrified of birds(something about getting attacked by seagulls in florida) and he was running around the yard chasing her with the jake. 

he's such a good kid. i don't care if i ever shoot another bird, so long as he becomes the ethical enthusiastic hunter he's already shown to be. i got someone to call birds in for for life

now we try and get his brother on the board in 2 weeks

[Tunaguy]

Great story. Congrats! That kids hard core.

[btomlin]

Congrats, young man!  There aren't too many things that beat a young kid wearing a big smile from a good hunt!

[Wrangler95]

  Nice going,congrats!!