I can't explain how awesome of a day I had yesterday. My almost 9 year old took his hunters safety 2 months ago, and with good behavior, was allowed to go on his first ever hunt. Now, I have been hunting turkey for 7-8 years since moving out here, and never got one. One of his goals was to "get one before Dad". Well, a buddy who has had some success here wanted to help us out, so we met up on public land where he had seen a single gobbler strutting a week ago. Let me say that I had been really hopeful that it would go well, at least until attending the Seminar Thursday and hearing from Steve how bad the population was right now. Well, that proved true as we saw no birds or could hear not a single sound I. Our first spot. Finally decided to take a drive to see if we could locate and, and saw one single hen in 45 minutes.
So we took a drive in another area, and after seeing 7-8 hunters along the road and zero birds, we were just leaving the area when we rounded a corner and a big black bird flew across the road in front of us down into a draw. We jumped out, couldn't see it, and were about to leave when it gobbled down in the bottom. We immediately went around to the opposite ridge, where we figured it would try to go up and over towards private property. Well, after an hour, one circling around and seeing us, trotting off, and returning again, it finally came up where it should have. Stopped about 5 yards short of being open and strutted then head went straight up. Pretty sure he saw us, started to turn, but still through a little brush. My little guy says he saw an opening through the brush, and fired. Dropped on the spot, rolling down the hill, flapping feathers everywhere. I grabbed the gun, told him to run and step on his head. My buddy and son went flying down, my son jumping on the turkey.
Lots of hugs and high fives, never been so excited. And it was a great bird, which if it wasn't for my excitement, and haste to get home and prepared, probably should have had officially weighed and measured. It has to be at 20+ lbs! has spurs at 1 1/4 " each, and get this, a 10 1/2 " beard. If it's even just 20 even, and my calculations are correct, that would put it right around 45-50 for score in California in the NWTF books. Unreal. Told him he got spoiled good, and a normal hunter like me would rarely ever get a bird like that, especially on public land.
Anyway, here are a couple shots. Mom is leery about his face on the internet at so young an age, so it's a shot that will give a good judge of size. My son is a little taller than average, and it hangs pretty good. Not sure how to post photos anyway, but I'll try to attach them.
So we took a drive in another area, and after seeing 7-8 hunters along the road and zero birds, we were just leaving the area when we rounded a corner and a big black bird flew across the road in front of us down into a draw. We jumped out, couldn't see it, and were about to leave when it gobbled down in the bottom. We immediately went around to the opposite ridge, where we figured it would try to go up and over towards private property. Well, after an hour, one circling around and seeing us, trotting off, and returning again, it finally came up where it should have. Stopped about 5 yards short of being open and strutted then head went straight up. Pretty sure he saw us, started to turn, but still through a little brush. My little guy says he saw an opening through the brush, and fired. Dropped on the spot, rolling down the hill, flapping feathers everywhere. I grabbed the gun, told him to run and step on his head. My buddy and son went flying down, my son jumping on the turkey.
Lots of hugs and high fives, never been so excited. And it was a great bird, which if it wasn't for my excitement, and haste to get home and prepared, probably should have had officially weighed and measured. It has to be at 20+ lbs! has spurs at 1 1/4 " each, and get this, a 10 1/2 " beard. If it's even just 20 even, and my calculations are correct, that would put it right around 45-50 for score in California in the NWTF books. Unreal. Told him he got spoiled good, and a normal hunter like me would rarely ever get a bird like that, especially on public land.
Anyway, here are a couple shots. Mom is leery about his face on the internet at so young an age, so it's a shot that will give a good judge of size. My son is a little taller than average, and it hangs pretty good. Not sure how to post photos anyway, but I'll try to attach them.
