First Turkey

I have been hunting turkeys for about 15 years now but had never been lucky enough to put a bird down. I for the last few years I have been able to hunt a small private piece of property in the tumb area of Michigan. I have been very successfull in calling long beards in on this property but for one reason or another I have not been able to connect with a bird. This year was also going to be a special hunt because I was going to bring my 9 year old son along with me on his very first turkey hunt. I knew that he would not be able to sit still for very long so I bought a pop-up blind for us to use. So my son sat down to pick a date to hunt and we picked the date of May 12th. Even though we would only have a short amount of time to hunt because he had a soccer game and then a Cub Scout outing after that we wanted to go then because that would be the first weekend of our season. When the night before the 12th came I told him that we were going to be getting up early the next morning becuase I wanted to be out in the woods before the sunrise so he went to sleep early that night.

Well low and behold I slept thru my alarm that morning so we ended up getting out in the woods much later that I wanted to. It was already daylight when we got there and time we got the blind setup and such it was almost 8:00 in the morning. I was a little bummed until I made my first call on my box call and I had 3 toms answer me. The look on my sons face was in awsome when he heard the turkeys gobble. There was one in front of us, one behind us, and one off to our left. I called back and forth to the toms for about 30 mins before they shut up and didn't answer anymore.

Then about 9:00 we had 3 hens appear out of nowhere right in front of our blind and walk down the clearning off to our left. My son Paul was telling me to call to see if there were more and I told him that I was going to wait to call until the hens went over the hill that they were heading towards and out of sight before I called. When they finally were out of sight I gave a call on my box call and a tom answered immediately and he was right on top of us. I told Paul that he was very close and to sit as still a possible and to be very quite. The tom kept calling and I would answer him about every 5th or 6th time that he called. He was very close and off to our right but due to the thick brush over there I couldn't see him. Finally after about 15 minutes I could see him about 60 yard off to our right struting around. He stayed in the same spot for almost 45 minutes just sturting around in circles. Paul could not see him and all I kept thinking was I hope that the tom would move in such a way that would allow Paul to see him. At that point all I wanted was for Paul see him. I was starting to think that he wasn't going to come any closer. Then all of a sudden he start moving towards up. I tapped on Paul's leg and told him to sit very still because the tom was moving towards us. Finally the bird got to a spot where Paul could see him and he stop, fanned his tail out and struted for Paul to see. Paul thought that was awsome. I still couldn't get a clean shot yet be he was in range. He was heading for the clearing so I told Paul that when the turkey stuck his head out into the clearing I was going to shoot him. Sure enough the tom continued on a path heading towards the clearing and when he stuck his head out I shot and dropped him right there.

I was so excited and so was Paul. We got out of the blind and walk up to the tom and he was still flopping around a bit and there were 2 other toms behind him that we didn't even know were there that flew off. That was when Paul started to feel sad for the bird. I was going to shoot him again and Paul told me not to. He said to let the bird die with diginity. So I did. finally the bird died and I could tell that Paul was very sad. I knelt down beisde him and told him that it was okay to be sad that the bird died. I told him that I wanted him to respect the animals that we hunt and to not go out in the woods hunting just for the thrill of killing something. So Paul made a cross out of sticks and put it at spot that the turkey had died. So then we took pictures of us with the bird and headed home.

The bird was a 22 pound bird with a 8 1/2 inch beard. I have to say the most memorable part of the whole hunt was that I got to share getting my first bird with my son. I will never forget that. Now he can't wait until next year to go hunting with me and my 8 year you son want to go also and yes I will be taking both of them with me next year.