I helped my 83 y-o hunting buddy get his 1st tom (failed merriams double)

[azdonw]

I am proud to have called in this Merriams tom for my 83 y-o hunting buddy Thursday. I had hunted two weeks ago up in the mountains here in Arizona by myself because my buddy was recovering from eye surgery, but I told him I'd take him back up this week if his doctor cleared him. He did, and loaded up my camper and headed up the mountain.

First morning, no gobbling on the roost like two weeks ago. So we walked our favorite road where I'd seen the most sign. We saw a recent set of gobbler tracks along with wing marks where Tom had strutted right in the road. We walked off the road a little and I heard a tom gobbling down in the bottom of a canyon. We set up, and I started calling with my new ghost cut mouth call. The gobbler bellowed again. I decided to move closer to the edge. Calling again yielded gobbles from two different toms! I stopped yelping and just did bubble clucks.

Then suddenly, I saw THREE gobblers coming up the hill, behind some spindly trees. I waited until one of them had its head between the trees and trained my muzzleloading CVA shotgun on it. Boom and the tom was flopping on the ground. I quickly motioned to my buddy to come over, because he had been hanging back. He ran down the hill a little to catch one of the other gobblers running to back down. He shouldered his 85 y-o Ithica double barrel 16 gauge and let loose its #4s. His tom fell immediately.

I was too busy watching my buddy take the second tom that I didn't look to see what happened to mine. When I walked over to where I'd shot it...no bird!! I walked back and forth, all the way down to the bottom of the canyon, looking around every blow-down, stump, etc. But still no bird. The shot had only been 10 to 15 yards, and all I can figure is that the tom might have ducked and I missed with my extremely tight pattern. Oh well, It made my day to have helped my buddy get his first!

[Lcmacd 58]

Awesome.....
I hope if I get to 83 that someone will help me out

[Greg Massey]

Awesome. congrats to him... I hope i'm still around to talk about hunting at 83

[Lcmacd 58]

Awesome. congrats to him... I hope i'm still around to talk about hunting at 83

Amen !!

[Sir-diealot]

That's great, congratulations to him.

[WV Flopper]

Thank you for sharing.

Congratulations to both of you!

[WiLL B]

Congratulations! i hope I can still hunt em at 83!

[Turkeybutt]

Thanks you for sharing the story and the photo of your buddy and his bird. Kudos to you for taking the time to take your 83 year old buddy out hunting.

Sorry you missed your bird. We all miss, it's part of hunting, It isn't always about winning or losing, harvesting whatever it is we are hunting or whatever we are involved in, but more about the things we learn along the way and the memories we create.
I'm sure that's a hunt neither of you will ever forget!



 

[Badger]

Congrats to the gentleman holding the turkey.  great memories for all. 

[zelmo1]

Great day bro, congrats to you both. Z

[Tom007]

Great job. Congrats!!

[JeffC]

Congrats to your friend on taking his first, hope he's able to take more, thanks for sharing.

[Muzzy61]

Congrats to both you guys.

[Dtrkyman]

That's the way to do it, I hope someone carts me around when I'm in my 80s!

[joey46]

Congrats.