Yesterday was the Pa youth season and what a day we had! A_jabbo and I have been scouting and hanging with a flock of birds for the past 4 days leading up to the season. We knew we would be in the game. I have two young boys, ages 6 and 9. While Pa doesn't set a minimum age to take a youth our household rule is that you have to be 6. Easton (my oldest) has enjoyed success on the youth day the last three years so it was Parker first on the gun. This flock had several gobblers so the chance for a double was there but Easton has never shot a 20 gauge and two guns with two youth and two mentors had me thinking about safety and we elected to only take the single shot .410 and let Parker shoot first and hopefully get on a bird later in the morning for Easton.
As luck would have it birds were gobbling good off the roost and it wasn't long before Easton peeked out the right side of the blind and said he saw two birds enter the field. I used the binos to see through the crack in the window and saw that both birds were longbeards and coming quick. I reached down and grabbed a second shell and held it between my pointer and middle finger on my right hand. The pair ran straight to the strutter decoy and started beating it to a pulp. Parker, sitting on my lap, was patient and let the birds separate before squeezing the trigger and dropping the bigger bird. At the shot I grabbed the gun out of the bog pod and A_jabbo let loose a fighting purr and kept the second gobbler close while covering up the noise of me ejecting the spent shell and reloading. I got the barrel out the window and gun over to Easton and told him, "safety is off, go ahead." It's here where I thought there might be a miss in our future. Easton was so excited and there was no way to get him on a rest and that barrel was dancing from all the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He handled it like a pro, took a deep breath, settled (a little) and squeezed. At the second report of the .410 the second longbeard flipped backwards and fell. We celebrated and took pictures while more birds continued to gobble in the woods behind us. I don't think the boys truly realize how special that hunt was for both the mentors and the brothers. We celebrated with a big breakfast at a local diner with one of the boys friends and his dad who were also successful.
WHAT A MORNING!!!!!
Of course the boys wanted to score the birds like Adam and I do and man was it close but Parker's scored better by a tenth of a point. He naturally has been letting Easton know about his "bigger bird" since. Easton's been a good sport about it though so life is great!
