This has been a turkey season for the record books! I'm not even sure where to begin. My wife, Dayna, shot her first turkey opening morning last weekend, my eleven-year-old daughter, Paisley, shot her first bird on Wednesday, and now my son is tagged out on his first two birds ever on the North Zone youth opener!
After two years of south zone youth hunting and coming up unsuccessful we decided to give the north zone a try. We came close the past two years in the south zone, but just couldn't make things work. My son was full of disappointment after failed hunts, and especially when his mom and sister both killed their first birds after hunting for a combined total of 30 minutes. But boy did he get his redemption this weekend!
I had never stepped foot on this management area that we were going to, but had a couple buddies that had previous experience. I reached out to them and they both told me the same general area to hunt. Neither one of them had been there in about four years so I wasn't sure the intel I had received would be good anymore or not. We looked at onX and picked out a spot that we wanted to go to opening morning. The area we were hunting was 4 hours north of where I live. I did not want to ride up the night before and rent a hotel room so we set our alarms for 1 in the morning to make the four-hour trek up there, get in the woods and settled before the woods came to life. The whole ride up there I had different scenarios playing through my head while Easton was fast asleep. Birds gobbling everywhere and then working perfectly into our setup and Easton finally killing his first. Then I had thoughts of us making a four-hour trip one-way to a place that was void of birds. I had no clue what to expect.
We arrived at the parking spot at 5:15 am. We got our stuff unloaded on the back of the truck and packed up and ready to make the hike in. We followed the sandy road only with the light from the sliver of the moon. We held hands and I told him it was going to be an amazing time. He talked about how he was going to shoot a gobbler in the face when he came in strutting. I smiled in the darkness even though he couldn't see it. Little did he know that I had the same scenario playing through my head. We made the quarter mile walk back to the spot that we wanted hunt. I put the decoys out and we got settled in.
The birds were just starting to wake up. Song birds were chirping, the faint sound of a barred owl could be heard off in the distance. As we waited for a closer owl to sound off I surveyed the surroundings. We were a little bit too far out in the open. I told Easton that we needed to slide back up underneath the big sprawling live oak and get set up there. Doing that would push us back a little farther from the decoys than I wanted but it was a little too light to move them at this point. We slipped back up underneath the oak tree and I ranged the decoys. They now set at 34 yards. I knew this was going to be a little bit of a poke for Easton but I had faith in him and the gun he was shooting.
It was now legal shooting time and we still hadn't heard a gobble. I pulled out the Harrison hootin' stick and ripped out an owl call. Seconds later it was followed up by a gobble. We looked at each other with wide eyes. The gobbler was close, probably a hundred yards from us. I hit the owl call again to pinpoint exactly where he was and 2 gobblers hammer from the same spot. Game on!!!
I put the owl call up and take out the Frank Cox African Blackwood trumpet that Frank had made for my son. I let out a couple soft clucks and a few yelps and they cut me off. We are definitely in business. I look at Easton and tell him today is his day. We then go over a few different scenarios in case they come in different than we planned. I tell him about the importance of NOT moving at all until I tell him to. Now all we need to do is get one to come in.
10 minutes go by and I have been calling to the gobblers and they are responding every time. They are now on the ground and closing the distance. I am peeking to my left when Easton says, "Dad a turkey." I look up and a lone hen is in the decoys. I tell him we can't kill that one. We watch as she begins to walk in front of us towards the gobbling birds. She is at 10 yards and headed to them.....not good. If she gets to them she is likely to take them away. I put my hands up in the air and she looks right at me and freezes. I wave them around, then she turns and goes back the direction she came from and flies away the opposite direction of the gobblers.....SCORE.
Back to the gobblers. Now they are within 60 yards and looking for us. I get the gun on my knee and Easton settled with the red dot on the decoys. I hit the call and one fires off directly behind us at 40 yards. I whisper to Easton to stay still. I can now see him out of the corner of my eye in full strut. He walks 10 yards closer and sees the decoys. He comes out of strut and sprints to the decoys like a track star, his long rope for a beard swaying back and forth with every stride. He gets to the decoys and postures up. My heart is about to come out of my chest, my breathing out of control. We are so close to a flopping gobbler I can hardly stand it. He jumps up and starts beating the crap out of his plastic nemesis. He pauses and I tell Easton to shoot him. He says the gun is too high so I lower my knee. Now he says it's too low. I am getting nervous that it's not gonna happen now. Finally he says he is on him but the bird is working over the decoy like a MMA fighter on a punching bag. He jumps from side to side kicking the decoy relentlessly. He is giving the decoy a beatdown like it has never seen before. He sticks his head up and I whisper kill him..... nothing....kill him, shoot him, shoot, pull the trigger, shoot, shoot, now, pull the trigger (I must have said it 20 times)...... then BOOM!!!!! The 20ga barks and the sound of the woods is broken by excitement and tears!!!! He had done it, his first gobbler. We rushed out there and flipped him over..... "look at that rope buddy," then "buddy look at those hooks, he is a monster!!!!" He had killed a stud!!!! Mission accomplished!!!!
We decided to go back again the next morning and try for a second. We setup in the exact same spot as the previous morning and it all played out almost exactly the same. This time I only had to tell him to shoot twice and he had his second bird. He is officially tagged out in Florida!!!!
We are headed to Tennessee in the morning to drop his birds off at the best turkey taxidermist in the business John Beard. He mounted my smoke phase osceola I had shot 9 years ago. I told Easton we would mount his first bird if it was a good one and boy was it ever. I really hadn't planned on getting 2 mounted for him but hey it's only money right!!!! The mounts and the memories will last a lifetime.
The first bird had 10.75" beard, matching 1.25" spurs, and weighed 18lbs. The 2nd bird had 11.25 beard, matching 1.25" shanks, and was huge, weighing in at 20lbs. My good buddy David McCleaf took the epic photos of Easton and I. I can't begin to thank you enough. One of the photos of Easton and I, and one of Paisley and I and their turkeys will be blown up and hung on the wall in our pool table room!!!
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