A quick note as I'm new here. My name is Rick. I turkey hunted as a kid. I'm just now getting back into it after 12 years hiatus, for work reasons. I spend much of my fall and winter deer and predator hunting. I have breezed through some of the forum here. Looks great and happy to be in good company. Nuff of that. Time for the goods.
I took my nephew,12, out for the youth season on Saturday and Sunday. This was his first turkey hunt. Friday we went scouting and found a few promising spots for Saturday morning.
Saturday morning we arrived at the first spot for first light. After about 2 hours of deer watching and no turkey progress we moved on down the way. About a mile from our first spot we stopped and yelped a few times on the box call. It was a bit windy so hearing was limited. We moved about 200 yards farther when I heard a Tom gobble in the woods across from us. We quickly got setup in a good spot. I put a mouth call in my mouth and started yelping and cutting a little. He gobbled some more. After a few exchanges and lots of gobbling he finally broke the wood line and was in our site. He began double gobbling and closed another 50 yards. He went full strut for our decoy, Which was getting a little whacky in the wind, at about 70 yards. This old bird was the biggest turkey I've ever rest my naked eyes upon. My nephew had no reference so he was clueless as to just how special this bird was. I was clearly more shaken than the youngster. With a head of almost all white and beard dragging on the ground. He decided he had enough and vacated the scene. He let out one last thunder gobble as a parting gift.
This morning we arrived in the same area. Hopes of finding that old grey gobbler were high. We heard a few gobbles early but nothing metabolized so we moved to a new area. A few more hours and lots of walking it was late in the morning. With no further progrss in the turkey department I asked the youngster if he felt like continuing. He came up with the best answer he could. "Well" he said with a pause "We only have 2 hours left. Lets keep going". So we hustled and got the the next spot at about 10:20. We quickly found a nice looking spot and started calling. Boom gobbles from 2 different birds! I gave them a few minutes of silence then yelped some more. Gobbles again and closer! I left those toms to wonder if I was still interested and stayed silent until they gobbled again. I quickly responded with some cuts and yelps and they were on a string right too us. Gobble! They are getting closer. Gobble! They are really close. Gobble! Theres one! Our silence was driving them mad. This jake kept closing the distance. He refused to fan out which lead me to believe the more dominant of the 2 was still out of sight. At 40 paces he began to move parallel with us. I think he glimpsed my nephew move the gun and was planning to scoot. I figured he was the best chance getting one of these two birds so I whispered " I am going to stop him. When he stops, shoot him". I waited for him to make it to a hole then clucked. He stopped. I whispered "shoot!" BANG! He was down! First turkey in the book for the kiddo! In the final hour he knocked down this jake at 11:10am.
The box call I'm using (in the photo) is made by my good buddy Kip Feroce. Kip is a first class fella and makes a great call. Thanks, Kip,for the great call and awesome advise.
