Your first time

[zsully]

I killed my first turkey in the fall of 98 by pure luck while  on a squirrel hunt. I didn't hunt the spring until 2005 when my college roommate took me out. We never had a successful hunt together but we worked a bunch of birds and made a boatload of mistakes. During finals week that year I had a day without a final and decided to go hunt by myself. I ended up killing a bird that morning and have been hooked ever since.

[fallhnt]

Fall of '90. First longbeard I ever saw. Hooked on Fall ever since.

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[RutnNStrutn]

We were both in high school, had known each other for a while and one day she.... wait wrong first time!

[RutnNStrutn]

My first wasn't much to talk about. Set up in the dark. Jake flew down to the decoy and I shot him. 
2nd bird was a story!! The next season I was set up in an oak hammock in FLA. It was a quiet morning until a fire engine went by out on the highway. In between the highs and lows on his siren, I thought I heard a bird gobbling. As the fire engine start to fade out of hearing range, I heard it again. It was a gobbler!! Being a firefighter I knew that I was destined to kill him as my first mature gobbler!!
Not knowing any better, I kept calling, and he kept gobbling. Luckily for me, he didn't hang up in a strut zone. Finally I saw his white head bobbing down the fire trail that ringed the hammock I was hunting in.
I called to him again, and he stepped off the trail, into the hammock and broke into full strut and gobbled!! I nearly passed out. He strutted back and forth just outside of gun range, waiting for my hen deke to come to him. I yelped softly to him and he slooooooowly came closer. When he got to 25 yards, I dropped the hammer and the fire engine gobbler was mine!! It was destiny!!
The funniest part is that I was hunting with 2 friends. We drove in to the WMA together, and walked in on a fire trail, then split up. We agreed if the hunting was slow, we'd meet back at the fire trail at 0900. The bird walked into the hammock at 0855. The guys showed up at 0900 and stood out on the fire trail talking. Then they heard me shoot close by, and panicked thinking they might have spooked my bird and I missed. So they ran to the truck and waited. Later, when I showed up with my gobbler, they were standing there talking, acting like nothing happened. Once they saw my gobbler, they laughed and told me the truth about what happened. No harm, no foul, I was just thrilled to have my first mature tom!!

[chcltlabz]

I still remember my first turkey hunt, my first successful turkey hunt, my first spring gobbler and the first gobbler I called in for myself like they were yesterday.

I grew up in PA, so the hunting age was 12.  In 1988, I turned 12 just before spring gobbler season, so that was my first official hunt though I'd tagged along for lots of years.  In western PA, there weren't many turkeys back then.  We scouted every weekend driving roads and listening for birds (that was scouting back then).  We found birds, made a plan for opening day and proceeded to hunt all day without hearing a peep.  Never did kill one that spring, but I did kill a fall bird that year.  We set up in the morning waiting on fly down.  Birds were there, but a long ways out.  After it was apparent they weren't coming our way, we headed their way to try and get close enough to them to break them up.  We did, and we did.  I remember seeing my father start running, so I followed.  Ran as hard as I could towards the birds and ran square into about a 10 inch tree chest first.  We set up and my father started calling and I had 3 young birds pop over the hill maybe 10 feet in front of me.  Of course I missed at that distance and took 2 more shots as they flew straight up.  We after that to move the direction they flew and ended up walking up on a bird I had shot and were able to finish her off.  She couldn't have been much bigger than a full grown pheasant.

The next year, I had several close encounters with gobblers.  The first one I spooked when I moved my gun.  After a talking to about staying still, I definitely wasn't making that mistake again.  The next pair of gobblers that came in later that year made it away scott free because I was afraid to move my gun and spook them, even though I would have had to move a few inches to get on them...  All part of the learning process I guess.  Third opportunity, we were running and gunning PA style (driving and calling from the road), and we got 2 birds to answer us from opposite sides of the road, and one was way too close.  I remember my father putting the truck in neutral and letting it coast down the hill, then going in for a heck of a long walk not hearing a peep.  Big surprise.   When we got back near the truck, the bird on the opposite side of the road gobbled and we went after him.  My father was behind me on the same tree, so he couldn't see what was going on.  I remember the bird slowly peeking his way around and finally stepping out from behind a big tree, but he was still in some brush.  I remember almost passing out I was breathing so hard when I asked him if I could shoot.  He of course couldn't see, so I shot and down he went.   I couldn't stand because my feet were asleep and I was too excited, but I had my first spring gobbler, a jake.  When we got to the truck, the other bird gobbled and my father went after him.  Few minutes later I hear him shoot and he brought a decent longbeard to the truck.

Few years and a few birds under my belt, I went off to college and luckily had friends of the family close enough that they could get me out turkey hunting.   With them, I'd get dropped off and hunted on my own.  Totally new experience for me, and what really sealed my fate as a turkey hunter.  Evening before opening day in New York, I roosted two gobblers on my own.  I knew exactly what tree I wanted to be at in the morning and did just that.  Called them in with my old Quaker Boy Slate over glass call just like the books said you were supposed to.  They flew down to the top of the ridge right beside me and the first bird in bought it.  8 inch beard 2 year old.  Nearly 100 longbeards since then, and I haven't had another text book hunt where I roosted a bird, went right in and shot him from the roost.

[tha bugman]

No turkey hunt will ever compare to the first one I went on at 5 years old with my daddy.  That morning is forever etched into my brain.  He nor I never knew at that moment how an addiction would take over and take me all over the country chasing them.  It was just me, him, his old box call, his 16 ga, and the beaver dam gobbler.  Not a time that I pass the gated road does my mind not instantly travel back to then.