On Saturday morning things worked out in our favor and my 13 year old son was able to tag his first turkey. He’s been trying to get one the past couple of years, both spring and fall, but things just didn’t work out until this trip. We were planning to do a combo squirrel/turkey hunt on Saturday and were driving by the property we could hunt when we spotted a flock of about 10-12 out in the middle of a hay field. I was puzzled because they all looked like toms… not the typical hens and poults. I thought that would be a very large bachelor group of toms if indeed they were all toms. After a quick stop to talk to the farmer, we drove by them again to try to decide what to do. The options where try to sneak through the cornfield to get close enough for a shot or go to the edge of the hay field what was bordered by trees with very tall weed growth under the trees. We thought trees were the best bet as we hoped they would enter the tress as they exited the hay field. As we put the sneak on them, we could see one every once in a while… and they were heading in our direction was we were heading towards them. We were trying to stay very low and out of site as much as possible. The next time we raised up to see where they were at, the leading ones were within range… for my 12 gauge shooting 3.5″ Hevi Shot turkey loads… not my son’s 20 gauge. Luckily I was carrying my 12 gauge for just this reason. We might have been able to wait them out until they closed the gap another 20 yards but I thought it would be best to take one while we had a chance. I handed my 12 gauge to my son and took his gun. As he was shouldering the gun he couldn’t figure out how to take the safety off. As we worked on that, the turkeys saw some movement but weren’t overly alarmed… just enough to raise their heads nice and tall. He steadied the barrel against the trunk of a big cottonwood, picked out the closest one, aimed for the red spot on the neck, and pulled the trigger. With that the tom was knocked back and started flopping around. We exchanged high fives and even a hug. He told me his legs were shaking.
We tried to make it an even more perfect fall day by trying for a sturgeon that evening but only got one small channel cat. I told he we used up all our luck that day on the tom.
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