Tristan’s first gobbler…”If I could just get him on a bird…”

“If I could just get him on a bird…”

After two years of an enthusiastic attitude to kill a turkey, and two very “close but no cigar” scenarios, I felt like I was losing the only one of my three boys who likes to hunt.  They all enjoy fishing, but Tristan (or JT) is the only one who has had the desire and discipline to roll out of bed at 4:30 in the morning, climb into a blind and… sit and wait.  Those last three words are not found in the vocabulary of my two other sons…

But as turkey season approached this spring, I detected a change in his desire.  Figuring that the best way to deal with this change was to sit back and be patient, I passively watched the opening morning of the youth season go by, as Tris decided to sleep in.

After dinner that night, I heard the words I had been wanting to hear – “Let’s go tomorrow morning.”  I looked out the window and saw the effects of a nor’easter tearing through our region, wondering if his words were insured by the pouring rain.  I checked the weather forecast and smiled as I saw that a window of no rain was predicted for the next morning.  We’re going…

I heard shuffling around and drawers opening and closing from his bedroom, followed by his alarm clock a few minutes later.  I took that as a good sign that some enthusiasm had found its way back into his mind.  He came downstairs ready to go, grabbed his Savage .22/.410 and out the door we went.  As we loaded the Ranger, I heard a bird gobble from its roost.  Another good sign indeed.

Wild Mustard

A five minute ride to the farm brought us to our food plot that had been invaded by wild mustard, but still had plenty of clover.  We set up a single strutting decoy off to our right and then I paced off ten yards directly in front of the blind and placed a large stone at the spot.  On Friday we had patterned his gun and found a tremendous difference between ten and fifteen yards.  At fifteen, only five No. 4 pellets had found the kill zone; at ten there were between fifty and sixty.  Hopefully, any bird that came in would be inside ten yards.

After situating ourselves in the blind, about fifteen minutes passed before we heard the first tom gobble from the roost, about two hundred yards away.  After anther fifteen minutes, he responded to my shaky calling skills.  We toyed with him for a few minutes, finally determining that he had flown down out of his nighttime spot.  As we continued to tempt him, a hen came around from the right side of our blind.  I let out a low breath of relief – I figured she would keep Tris interested as long as she was around.  Five minutes after that, another hen came from our left – they fed on clover, close enough that we could hear them tear the leaves from the stems.  If it had just been me in that blind, getting that up-close and personal with a wild creature would have me deeming the morning a success.  But I had bigger plans for this morning…

We continued to toy with the distant tom while the hens payed no mind to my calling or the decoy.  They were pounding the clover five yards in front of us.  I had Tris pick up his gun and practice aiming at the hens as they coursed back and forth in front of the blind.  He did this for about twenty minutes and then leaned the gun up in the corner of the blind and watched the girls in front of us.

10 inch beard and 3/4″ & 7/8″ spurs

I continued to toy with the far-off gobbler, losing faith that he would venture our way.  He had lost interest in my yelping and purring on my glass call, so I switched to a slate call.  I started with some purrs and out of nowhere, a gobble blasted from the woodline about seventy yards away.  I could sense Tristan’s spine stiffening up and as I glanced at him, his eyes grew larger than I had ever seen.  The tom blasted away again, so I whispered to Tris to get his gun back up.  Within a few moments, Tris spotted him coming out of the woodline.  He could see the hens, causing me to breath another sigh of relief.  I put the call down, hoping it was just a matter of waiting out his patience.  The bird positioned himself on top of a dirt mound and proceeded to strut and gobble in an attempt to lure the ladies to him, but they paid zero attention to his behavior.

It took him about fifteen minutes to either lose his patience or work up enough nerve to take on the decoy, but he finally hopped off the mound and started to make his way in to our setup.  He came in all the way to just beyond the stone I had placed as a marker and stared at the decoy and the hens.  “We’re golden,” I thought.  And then, it all nearly fell apart.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered to me.  I looked over to him and the expression on my face told him that I didn’t know what he meant.  “I can’t.  I can’t do this.”  Now I was confused because I didn’t know if I was dealing with some early remorse or if it was the anticipated recoil of the gun.  I had been pushing him earlier that week to try and shoot the Youth 870 twenty gauge, telling him that it would increase his range and lower the odds of another “close but no cigar” ending.  He declined my offer, which was why we were still working inside a ten yard radius.

I whispered back to him that he’d be fine.  Just get ready to squeeze the trigger and it would be over in a matter of seconds.  I still didn’t know if it was taking the life of an animal or the kick of the gun, but either way, we had come too far and were too close to sealing the deal to have a discussion.  And then what I heard that next moment made my stomach drop.  One of the hens started to putt, you know, that loud single warning putt that every turkey within a mile can hear.  She did it two or three times and I froze.  She was privy to our conversation in the blind.  I moved my eyes towards her without turning my head and saw her neck extended, looking into the blind.  I tapped Tris on his leg and whispered, “Don’t move.”

It’s all in the smile…

Whatever had gotten her ire up didn’t last long.  Content that there was no threat, she went back to feeding, as did the other hen.  All this time, the tom stared at the hens and the decoy, not having moved from his spot just beyond the stone.  Tris still had his gun up, aiming at the tom.  I told him that I would cock the gun for him, and if he didn’t want to squeeze the trigger, that would be fine.  But, if he was going to shoot, make sure you don’t jerk the trigger, just slowly squeeze the – BANG!!! – and I never finished my sentence.  The tom fell over and just paddled his legs.  The next thing I heard was a twelve year old boy mutter, “Holy crap!”  I looked over as he pulled his hood back and I saw the smile.

I knew then that we would be back again soon…