My Dad's Double

[Sixes]

A quick background to the story. My Dad is 75 and his health is going down hill. He is a big man (6'6" and around 375 pounds) and suffers from COPD, congestive heart failure, diabetes and has trouble walking due to a bad knee that needs repaired. But, he still loves the idea of turkey hunting and at least trying to hunt.

So him, myself and another 73 year old friend of our family, went down to middle Ga to a quail plantation owned by my Dad's friend. The property is ~10K acres and receives light hunting pressure. After a few years of low population, the turkeys seem to be making a comeback and last year, due to Covid, the property was not turkey hunted.

So we leave out Thursday morning at 5 AM for the 170 mile drive, stopping about halfway so they can get them some breakfast at Dennys. We get to the property around 830, unload our stuff and start riding the property looking for turkeys and sign of turkeys. We've hunted this property for 10+ years, so we know where they should be and it didn't take long to find a flock that had 3 longbeards and 6-8 hens, but they were 100% crazy  field turkeys. Anyone that has hunted crazy  field turkeys know exactly what I mean when I say that.

Thursday evening was hot and I knew the 2 old geezers were not going to hunt, so I slipped in to roost the field birds and they went to roost exactly where they have for years, but I knew I would have to develop a game plan since Dad can't really walk. I told them that I thought I could get them on the birds but not until Saturday morning. The game plan was to put up a couple of blinds on Friday afternoon for Saturday morning and set it where the blind would be in range where the birds cross a berm built up for a pivot to cross a wet ditch. On Friday morning, the 2 geezers dropped me off to hunt another area and went to breakfast. I got lucky and killed one pretty quick that morning, so I had most of the day to develop the plan.

After lunch, I sat out 2 blinds, one close to a woodline and the pivot crossing and the other about 200 yards against the pivot tires right in front of an access road that the turkeys like to enter and exit the field. We were hopefully set but it still was going to take some luck to pull it off because the birds were roosting withing 60 yards of the field.

THe next morning at about 615, I cut the lights of the truck and eased along the field edge and put both of them in their blinds and put a hen in front of the other guy and a Jake/Hen combo in front of Dad. The plan was for me to be in middle and call knowing that I was against a really thick drainage and the turkeys would enter one of the 2 places that I had them set. A little after daylight, the birds gobbled a few times right where they should be and we were ready. Finally, I started hearing the birds fly down and I started on a KP trumpet and the birds were responding with one gobbling behind me and headed for the secondary opening. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, I see him hit the field. He ignores the lone hen decoy at the pivot, but starts running, beard swinging and wide open, towards the Jake and Dad.

About 60 yards from the blind, he locks up and starts staring, so I start on some fighting purrs hoping he will think the jake is rady to fight. The bird is just staring when all of a suddn, I hear a BOOM!  BOOM! and the bird turns and runs as fast as he can out of the field. I'm thinking, "What in the hell? You had to know that was too far.", but then I heard the unmistakable sound of a turkey flopping.

Where I was sitting, I could not see the pivot crossing due to the blind and what happened was 5 longbeards came across the crossing and the Old Man decided a bird on the ground was worth one in the field, so he shot one and then got off a second shot before they got away. Not bad for a 75 year old man in bad shape.

I tried with the other guy, but we couldn't get it to work out, I had him on birds but something would go wrong or they would just act like field birds and make 300 yard circles from anything they didn't like.

Sorry for the length of the thread, I just wanted to tell my Dad's story.

Here is the double!

[randy6471]

 Congrats...awesome hunt and a nice story. My dad is also getting up in age and although his health is still pretty good, it's sometimes a struggle for one reason or another getting him on a hot bird. Like you I always work hard to get him on a bird and it's very rewarding for me when he connects...as I'm sure it was for you!

[Drycreek]

That's awesome!!
Congrats to you and your dad!

[shatcher]

Nice job!

[Muzzy61]

Congrats to your dad.

[guesswho]

Way to go Dad!!!!  Knock'em down!

[richard black]

Congratulations to both of you. A great hunt and a great story. I hope you and your Dad have many more!

[JeffC]

Awesome story , congrats to your Dad, thanks for sharing.

[bobk]

Congratulations to both of you.

[owlhoot]

Congrats , nice ones.

[MISSISSIPPI Double beard]

CONGRATS to you both.

[boomer]

Congrats!!

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[Tom007]

Awesome, nice job

[jmart241]

Great story congrats

[Mathews.1]

Congratulations