Youth weekend success

[toneloc]

What a great opening Youth weekend.  My 12 year old Joey and I traveled down to our hunting location Thursday morning.  Got there in time to spend the evening doing a little scouting.  Heard several birds in a new area...was a promising start to the trip.   On Friday morning the birds were tight lipped with the rain, but we did manage to hear a few in another location we had experience with from last year.   Things cleared off decent for us to roost Friday night.  Decided to go with the area we knew and roosted several birds.  Got rude awakening in the middle of the night with a tornado warning sounding off on the cell phone. 

Day 1 - Public

Despite the stormy night, things cleared off pretty well to start the morning and the winds had not yet arrived.   We were a little behind getting to the parking area and was already several trucks.  Walking back the main road we ran into a few different groups, but thankfully none in the location that we had picked out.  Made for an anxious walk in.

We got positioned in the dark and waited for first gobble.  After letting them gobble on their own a bit, Joey played a tree yelp that was followed by 3 sets of gobblers letting off multiple gobbles each back and forth....probably 40 gobbles or more in total!  Not sure I've ever heard anything quite like that....hell of a confidence booster!  Over the next 20 minutes on the roost he gave a few more tree yelps then let them come down.  After fly down, 1 of the groups of gobblers drifted off after hearing a pretty good fight go down.  One lone thunderous bird stayed pretty much in the same location, but across the valley ~200 yds. He gobbled steady, but was not moving.  Very tempting to back out and circle over to his side.  The third group shut up completely pretty quick after fly down.    We decided to stay put....and be patient till the bird across from us went quiet.   Then at about 755 we heard some hen clucks.  After a couple minutes scanning I saw 2 long beards skirting us about 50 yards silent.....through some thick.  Joey had pre-ranged some trees and told me "Dad it's too far, not going to risk missing."  Very proud of his discipline.  They slipped down the hill out of sight and he asked me if he should call.....told him nothing to lose at this point.  I was not very optimistic as they were headed in the same direction the other group went off.  To my surprise right after his call they turned and headed right back up to us.  The lead  bird was still not real comfortable but came closer to about 40 yards this time.    As he skirted us again, he started to pick up his pace and I told Joey he better cluck when had an opening.    He clucked and the bird stopped.  Perfect opening for me, but a little off for Joey.  He calmly moved over towards me and I had a perfect view as he shot.  Feel like I could actually see the pattern ripping down through the words...Bird went down, but still had some flop in him. It was really steep so he rolled a heck of a long ways down the hill. The mad dash ensued.....Joey made the prefect form tackle...lol.  Believe it was 2 long beards and 2 hens together that were subdominant.  Joey was over the moon excited to do it all on his own.  Wind kicked up pretty bad after that....we were very fortunate to get it done early.  It was an incredible experience in the Turkey woods.

Day 2 – Private

We were fortunate to have an option to hunt private for day 2.  Wind was still blowing so hard Saturday night we didn't even attempt roosting a bird.  It was totally different turf than the public and had no idea what to expect.  We were surprised at the rain when we woke up as it was forecasted for partly sunny conditions.  We waited till 615 for the rain to clear before heading into our listening location.   Right at dusk we heard some birds in the next creek bottom over.  We were formulating our plan to setup when a bird sounded off 200 yards way.  Was real open between us, so we belly crawled some decoys and setup on hedge row.  Joey decided to let me have some fun and do the calling.... Didn't take long and he flew down across a creek and into a pasture on the other side.  He gave us an awesome show strutting and gobbling, but was not going to come our way ....after trying to coax him for a bit, we shut up and let him go up and out of sight over the knoll.  We packed up the decoys and headed his direction.  After we crossed the creek we followed a hedge row carefully scanning as we crested the hill.  We heard a gobble that sounded far off and immediately started moving quickly towards it.  We only went 50 yards and a gobble popped out from under the fence at about 70 yards.  We froze and he nervously walked off.  I was pretty surprised he didn't make a big fuss and alarm put off.  A little different than what we experienced on the public.  I saw another couple heads on the other side of the fence, so I had Joey sneak up 20 yards closer in front of me.  I let out a yelp and two longbeards slipped under the same opening in the fence.  They turned and starting coming right at Joey.  Their heads were close together and it took a little bit for them to separate for Joey to be able to shoot.  He was crouched down and holding the gun off hand and it bulled him over on the shot.  There were several birds on the other side of the fence that all flew on the shot.  Joey thought he missed, but the bird went right down! We both said, it wasn't nearly as fun as when they come in strutting and gobbling, but also weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth!  Was another great experience seeing that bird work his stuff across the creek and getting to hunt in some different terrain.

[Tom007]

Congrats, love to see our youngsters get involved!

[Zobo]

Very impressive you called that first bird in and made a decent shot! Even more impressive to not shoot when you knew it was to far!! Congratulations, you're one heck of a turkey hunter!!!

[blake_08]

Congratulations. Sounds like a couple of good hunts!

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[JeffC]

Congrats Joey, great story and pictures. Thanks for sharing Dad.

[tomstopper]

Awesome. Congratulations to you both

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[Muzzy61]

Congrats to both of you !

[fishr64]

Congratulations to the young man and you dad!! Excellent weekend for you both. You have to be very proud. 

[Mabren2]

Great stories, congratulations!

[Vintage]

Congrats

[Turkeybutt]

Congratulations to both of you!
Great photos and memories for a lifetime!