wisconsinteacher
Handloader
- Dec 2, 2010
- 1,979
- 291
This weekend I was able to be a mentor for a local student of mine for his first turkey hunt. We scouted and shot the gun on Wednesday night and at 5 am Friday morning, he was waiting for me to pick him up. We got to the field where I set a blind the day before, but it was gone due to the high winds. After that little hiccup in our plan, we got setup and never heard a bird. After a short drive, we found 7 hens, 3 jakes and 1 tom. The set up was not good but we were able to see the birds and played with them for 2 hours. We were within 80 yards but they hung up on a small creek. After lunch, he decided he wanted to sit in a blind and wait instead of running and gunning. We took the blind to a roost area around 3 and set up. I called every 10 minutes and he slept in the blind for a bit. At 6pm, we had a bird gobble behind us to our call. I repositioned him and opened the blind window to see a red head 90 yards away. Luckily, the jake did not spook. As we were watching a hen started to yelp so I copied her and that got the flock moving down the big hill towards us. The 2 toms saw the decoys and starting strutting and drumming as they moved towards us. At 40 yards I gave him the green light but he said no, I want them to keep coming. By the time they were at 25 yards, I told him to pick one and shoot. He did a great job with the shooting and the bird never twitched. We had a great day and a successful weekend as a group. We had 19 middle school kids and 13 were able to get a bird.
23 pounds 10" beard 7/8" spurs
23 pounds 10" beard 7/8" spurs