A guy from my dad's work invited me hunting in the spring of 1990 or around then. I was so pumped, my dad never hunted but I had always hunted for rabbits in the backyard with my red indian youth bow. We headed out that morning and drove for a few hours, and upon arriving to our destination, realized I'd left my youth license at home. So it was a day of scouting/learning. The guy hooted and we heard a bird gobble and off we went. We sat until I heard the flydown. Spent the day learning about sign, how to call, and even called in a pair of jakes myself on a box. Plus we found a bunch of morels. At the end of the day we met up with another friend of his that asked me if I'd ever fired a 10ga, I said no, and learned the hard way not to have that gun against my shoulder while pressed firmly against a tree. My dad took me to the Indiana Chapter convention that year and that was the last of turkey hunting. I hunted everything in between, ran a trap line for a couple years, but never went back after turkey. Primarily it was because in all my other hunting I had not seen one, didn't know where to go, and no longer knew anyone that went. I still had calls from way back then that I would break out and mess with periodically.
In the fall of 2010, a friend of mine invited me to hunt one of his relatives properties for fall turkey. It was spur of the moment, and I wasn't very well prepared, I borrowed a shotgun (mine had a fixed skeet choke and wouldn't pattern well) so I put a few shells through it at a turkey target and went. That day I learned alot! I had a group of mixed hens/jakes come through that sounded like no turkeys I'd ever heard, they were squalking and making all sorts of ruckus. I couldn't get a good shot so I waited for them to work up the ridge behind me and then I learned about movement and turkeys, ha. I thought I was turning slowly to get into position (they were now behind me) and the whole flock went to the sky instantly. On the way out I saw a jake that was moving away from me and it was just before legal sunset. He suprised me, and I took aim and missed.
After that experience, I was hooked. I looked for everything I could about turkey hunting and found this site. Reading this site, I realized my pattern I had hunted with was terrible. So I bought a turkey gun. I spent the rest of the fall/winter learning my calls thanks in part to the local callmaker I told you about. I patterned my gun, found the best pattern, and scouted public land. Praise the Lord I was able to call in my first bird hunting by myself last spring after 3 days of hunting in the rain. This fall I went out and was able to call in my second bird on a mouth call. I believe I'm hooked for life now and hope to pass it on to my kids.
That being said, I'm a "1"
