Pickle shoots & scores !!!! Very first bird...........

[Yoder409]

Today was our youth day.  Took my 11 year old daughter Pickle to my honey hole before first light.  I had scouted this spot 7 or 8 mornings over the last month and a half and there was a wad of 4-6 gobbling birds in the same place EVERY time................including the morning with 4" of fresh snow and including yesterday morning.

To condense an entire morning..............not a peep !!  Heard hens roosted right there.  Saw 3 or 4 of them fly down.  Not a gobble.  We sat and called periodically til about 7:45 when Pickle decided she wanted to go for breakfast.  I couldn't blame her as I was puzzled as heck.  She just started to get up when she said "Dad !!  Don't move !!"  But it was too late.  A bird had been coming through a tree field to our decoy silent and in full strut..................  Busted.

So we went and had a big breakfast and came back around 10:30.  We did a little walking & calling and ended up at what we call the Turkey Sleepin Log.  It's a maple tree about 10 yards back in the woods off a hot little clearing that is just like sitting down in an easy chair.  Nice place to plop a decoy on the clearing road and call.  Been know to do a little snoozing at times too.........

So I worked my Kimble walnut over mahogany box every now and again and both of us relaxed/dozed some too.  About 11:20 (we have to quit at noon) I heard a VERY faint gobble down in the hollow straight out............300-400 yards.  Pickle was snoozing so I woke her.  I called a few more times and the gobble came from a field I knew to be 250-300 yards down in.  So we got the gun on the hickory stick and ready to rock.  I called again.  Waited.............called again..........waited............   Twenty minutes go by and nothing.  Pickle is feeling really bummed and ready to go.  We had a little talk about how turkey hunting goes sometimes, etc, etc.............  I told her if she was ready to be done then we'd just gather up and go since it was 10 minutes til we had to quit anyways.

I leaned over to my right to pick up my belt pack to stow my boxcall and there, coming up the road at maybe 45 yards and almost into the clearing was a bright red head !!  The bird was in about 1/2 or 2/3 strut and in LOVE with Henrietta, our decoy.  Pickle hadn't got the gun down yet.  So I started talking her through moving her gun and where her shot would be, where to aim on a strutter..........  I thumbed the hammer back on her single 20 and leaned to look straight down the barrel.  When the bird cleared the last of the bushes in the way I told her that was her shot whenever she was ready.  It took all of 2 seconds and she lower a boom of Federal HW 7's on his noggin right at the 30 yard line.  Right over onto its back !!  Kicked its legs about 3 times and not so much as a flop !!  There it was, right beside the road.  Pickle's first ever turkey.







   

[Jmbradt3873]

Thats pretty darn cool, she will remember  that hunt for a long time.

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[Izzyjoe]

That's cool! Good job pickle, that's a good shot of her toting him out. Memories like that last a life time!

[SteelerFan]

  

[tomstopper]

That's awesome. Congrats to that young lady and nice pics

[Tail Feathers]

Congratulations to Pickle!  Gotta love that smile.

[owlhoot]

Way to go young lady, great job! 

[DirtNap647]

congrats to you both  that's awesome

[jac63]

Congrats! Nothing better than a young hunter packing out their first bird. 

[moonman]

 

[2eagles]

Looks like a "sweet" pickle to me. Is that really her name or what Dad calls her?
I called my little girl Noodles. Now she has a little girl of her own and I still call her Noodles. Silly me.

[cramerhunts]

Great pictures showing a great hunt! Congratulations to you both! Awesome stuff right there.

[101st501]

That is so awesome

[Yoder409]

Looks like a "sweet" pickle to me. Is that really her name or what Dad calls her?
I called my little girl Noodles. Now she has a little girl of her own and I still call her Noodles. Silly me.

That's what Daddy (and many others) calls her.   

She's been Pickle since before she left the hospital because I noticed very early on that sometimes she was sweet.............sometimes she was sour...........     

She's turned out, 11 years later, to be nearly 100% sweet................................unless, apparently, you are a bearded bird !!!      

[RutnNStrutn]

Awesome!! Congrats to you both!!