A Special Turkey Season

Turkey season was going to be special this year. I was going to have a new hunting partner. I always said they would start when I felt like they were ready and not a certain age. My oldest daughter is 7 and was mature enough to make good decisions, big/coordinated enough to handle her own weapon safely and understand what we were setting out to do. When I asked if she wanted to turkey hunt this year, she was all in. We had to do some prep work first to see if it would work out.

Instead of going to .410 route, the girls have a compact semi auto 20 gauge to learn on. A bit more kick which is lessened somewhat by the inertia system but much easier to find ammo and a much greater room for error. We also had a BOG death grip tripod which is a must for helping young kids and it is pretty helpful for adults too. We spent time aiming at a turkey target in the basement. Familiarizing her with where to aim on the turkey but also feeling comfortable moving the gun around on the death grip, getting the bead on the bird, and operating the safety. Finally we got to “the range” and got to work. Starting with a 22 and red dot combo and that produced ultra consistent groups. But the real test was going to be how she would handle the recoil of the 20 gauge. She shot it 5 times and really handled the recoil well. Repetition on the operation of the safety with both guns was important too. Our shots with the shotgun were consistently high, but I wouldn’t say really getting the hang of looking down the barrel is an overnight thing.

I thought for a minute that putting a red dot on there would be an easy way to go. But I also thought that if we could get through this with just the bead it would help her become a better shotgunner in the long run. So we stuck with the bead and one more trip to the range and we got things working good. I felt confident in her and she did too. So we got our stack of mentored youth licenses for $7.50 and we were going to give it a go. If you haven’t looked into the mentored youth license, it is pretty cool. She has a spring turkey tag, fall turkey tag, deer tag, small game, and fur harvester.

I was working the D&R Sports show on opening weekend so we didn’t have a chance to get out in the morning. But we did make a couple quick afternoon trips out and I had scouted before the season. Both times we got around birds but never had anything in tight. Either way it was a lot of fun and June came along too. The girls even did an earth day cleanup on one of the farms after we hunted for a bit. They loved that and if they were going to have fun cleaning up I wasn’t going to stop them from filling up my decoy bag with any trash they found. Saturday before soccer was our big chance for a morning hunt. The scouting report was good and we would be along a spot that naturally funneled birds through. We weren’t close to the roost so it might be a minute before they got to us but I was really confident we would have birds in close. We had a jake and a hen decoy out and got settled in under the cover of darkness with high hopes of some intense gobbles early on. Those gobbles would never come, maybe it was the cold or the really gusty wind. But it was silent for an area with a lot of birds, they also could have just been too far away. Despite that, they were still hopefully traveling through this natural funnel. It didn’t matter to us whether a jake or a tom showed up. The first legal bird to give us an opportunity was the one.

Then disaster struck, something that is uncharacteristic for Mabel is to have a bad belly ache. She said her tummy hurt pretty bad and I was thinking we might have to call it. We decided to stick it out a little longer since it was prime turkey time for this area. I caught movement of a red/blue head in the woods beyond our little lane. It disappeared behind a big deadfall and I thought he would wrap right around there and into the decoys. She was ready to go but the bird and his buddies kept moving through the woods, unimpressed with my calls and unable to see the decoys. That was some excitement and a taste of the ups and downs of hunting. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen the way you drew it up in your head. A couple minutes later and she whispers “dad there’s more turkeys”. I could see these were also legal birds and it was 4 jakes on the same path as the toms. Once again they were unimpressed with my calls but once they got out of sight they cut up into the field and in clear view of the decoys. I noticed movement through the berry bushes and started to make out the outline of some birds. They were coming in hot! I told Mabel to get ready that these ones were coming to the decoys. She was on it and watching them cover ground. They were posturing and their heads were turning colors, this was the real deal. While they were working in she whispered “this is so exciting”. They got to the decoys and just would not separate for a clean shot. Someone with a lot of experience would have found a window or 2. But she was going to need some time to make this happen. Her patience was awesome, I wish I had some pictures or video of all the birds. But honestly I was just so in the moment of what was happening that it never even crossed my mind.

Eventually the birds kind of figured out something wasn’t right and one got separated from the group a little bit. They were on their way out and this one was lagging behind. I told Mabel to get on the bird in the back and when she was ready to shoot. I said, they are going to get out pretty quick so try to be fast. It was all on her then, I never said another word. If she got on them fast enough to make a shot that is awesome and if they got in the berries before she was ready we would get another opportunity this year. The last thing I wanted to do was to add any pressure in what was already a higher pressure shot than I would have liked. BOOM!!! and the bird hit the ground head first. I can still see it slow motion in my head, just a perfect shot right in the head and neck. We started yelling “you got him”, “ I got him”, and I don’t even know what else. She put the gun on safe and jumped up and gave me a big hug. It was pure excitement, then she was like “can we go get him”. It was all the most genuine thing and real deal excitement. There was no coaching to say “this is so exciting” while the birds were working in or no expected celebration. I quit watching hunting shows long ago when everyone was naming all their deer and talking about how that giant buck needs another year because he isn’t whatever inches of antler yet. We’ll watch some stuff like Meateater and a few other YouTube shows on occasion but that is it. So nothing was rehearsed on how you are supposed to celebrate or feel as the animals are approaching, it just happened and that will stick with me forever.

I couldn’t have been more proud of the whole sequence of events. We checked the bird out and had convenient spot for pictures. While trying to get the pictures she was shivering from the adrenaline dump. It was all just the coolest thing ever for me and hopefully her too. We officially had another hunter in the house. She wanted to call mom and surprise her. I was texting my dad and all my buddies, it was just a lot of excitement for one day. Even the soccer moms at the soccer game were really excited for her and that was pretty cool to see. She did it all her self, carried her gun safely the entire time, kept her composure during the whole thing, and made a great shot. She also noted that she didn’t feel the gun kick and that her belly ache was now gone. We had an agreement that if she got a turkey that we would swing by Wesco and get a bag of Takis and a fun drink so here we were at 8:30 getting celebratory Takis and Gatorade. Finally it was home to show mom and her sisters.

The girls love to say “best day ever” and this was certainly an all timer for me. I forgot to mention that this turkey had 3 beards which is pretty unique and something extra special for her to remember her first bird with. The girls are always proud when we have a meal of fish they’ve caught but our newest turkey hunter was extra proud of turkey nuggets on Monday night. “Everything tastes better when you caught it” and I think that’s true, I also think wild turkey is a special treat. I was excited at the prospect of 2 birds worth of meals if I could fill my tag too, more on that in the next one.