Finally. After 2 weekends of hard frustrating hunting. Sydney finally scored on her first Tom. We headed back up on Friday evening for round 2 in search of her first Bird. After hearing reports that the turkey sightings in some of the area’s we had permission to hunt had picked up, we were both excited. Getting a late start and after much rush Hr. traffic we arrived up to our area a lot later than we had hoped. We did not have time to try to roost a bird, but were able to see several birds in fields in the general area we were hunting. We decided to hunt Sat. morning in the same area we hunted the previous weekend. The landowner had seen several nice Toms throughout the week. Being that I believed the Birds were roosting a fair distance away from where we were setting up we were not in a rush to get set up before light. We were set up just after sunrise. After several Hr.’s of not only not seeing any birds, we had not even heard 1 gobble. This was strange because the weekend prior we had heard lots of gobbling to the East of us. Getting a Text from one of my friends saying he had shot a Jake and saw several others helped us some as we had permission to hunt that same spot the next day. We did a little scouting and tried a short evening hunt but had no luck. Sun. morning knowing the action was early the day before we got an early start. Getting up at 4:30, we found the Temp to be only 27 Deg’s. ( Burr !!! ) We were setup by a little after 5:00. Around 5:45, we started to hear lots of gobbles far to our East. Fun, but not what we were hoping for. The day prior, all the gobbles were from just up a logging road to our west. After 2 ½ Hr.’s of siting with no action near us, the daughter was getting frustrated and with being frozen we called it morning. I have to give her credit she hung in there very well for how cold it was. The evening before we had seen a tom and hen in a field close to my friends house we were staying at, so we drove by to take a quick look and there they were again. While the daughter took a long nap, the owner of that land stopped by my friend house to talk farming. I asked him if we could have permission to hunt on his land and he said sure go ahead. After wakening the daughter from her nap. We were headed to the new hot spot by 5:00. Having not gotten a close look at the spot prior it took awhile to find an a decent place to setup. There was not any idea spot, but we found a deadfall that offered us cover to the east where I believed the birds would come from. We got the blind that I hade made up from some camo mesh mounted to some poles in front of us. We were a lot close to the field edge and the decoys that I would have liked but it was the best spot I could locate. We were settle in and the daughter was playing a game on my cell. After about 15 minutes, I heard a sound just to the right of us. I told the daughter to put the phone down. Thinking it may be a deer we were caught off guard when were heard a hen cluck a few times just as we caught sight of the tom thru the lay down only 10 yards to our right. I told the daughter to reach for her gun. I saw her hand shaking like crazy, as she reached for it followed by a few quiet OH MY GOD’s. She managed to get the gun up just as he reached the Jake decoy. I told her to take the safety off and take the shot when she was ready. Seeing the Barrel of the gun wave all over the place had me a little nervous to say the least. I asked her if she wanted me to shoot at the same time. She said Yes. I got my gun into position and d started the countdown as we had discussed. Just as I started the countdown he turned and started to move away ( I think he caught some movement from us ) at 3 she squeezed the trigger ( I held off ) and it was bird down. As a side note here, she had already pumped the gun and had a new round loaded. That’s my girl. After getting the guns cleared and her calmed down she made a mad rush to see her first bird. She was one excited girl and I was one Relieved Proud daddy. It weighed 22 Lb. and had an 8” beard. My guess is a 2-year-old bird. Here are a few pictures of the bird she named Billy.
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