By Justin Lancaster
It was the last day of the 1999 Spring turkey season. My dad woke me up at about quarter after 4 in the morning to start to get ready. I put all of my camo clothing on that I had put out the night before. I walked down the stairs into my basement, where my dad was sitting on a bench, putting his boots on. He looked out the window with squinted eyes, and said, �Hmm�looks pretty nice out, that�s not good for turkey hunting.� I just shrugged my shoulders and finished tying the lace on my last boot. I was ready, and so was my dad, so we got in the truck, and drove the 15-minute drive to where we were going to hunt. I jumped out of the truck, and looked into the woods. Something just felt good about today, and I was confidant one of us would get a turkey. We opened the latch to the back of the Blazer, and got our guns out, made sure they were empty, and started walking up a small hill. It was a big field at 1st, but after about 75 yards, it turned into some thick woods, and we knew it wasn�t much further that we would have to go. It was just a small tendril of woods going this way, but there were 2 adjoining parts to the woods that were much wider and just a lot bigger. It was still too dark to start calling for the weary birds, so we just stood and waited for it to get light. I watched a red squirrel as it jumped from limb to limb on a big oak tree, just to pass the time. I looked at my Timex watch, and it said it was 5 after 5 o�clock. I looked at my dad, he took one more look into the sky, and nodded. It was time.
Dad pulled his box call out, and started to call, right from where we were standing. I listened, expecting to hear a throaty long beard to answer our call, but there was nothing. At all. Maybe today wasn�t going to be as good as I thought it was. Dad leaned over to me, and said, �Did you hear anything?� I whispered, �No, did you?� He shook his head no, and scratched his head. After 5 more minutes, he called again. Again the same response, nothing. He said, �We might as well set up, if we hear anything, we�ll move, though.� I nodded and asked him if we should load our guns now. He said we might as well, as it was really light enough to shoot, and I opened the action to my Remington 11-87 Turkey gun, and dropped a shell into the chamber. I then slid another into the magazine, and walked behind my father, who had done the same with his Mossberg model 835. We again walked across a different field, this one was over 400 yards across, but about an 8th of the way over, there was a small piece of woods that jutted out into the field. Dad called one more time about 25 yards across the field, and we waited for a few seconds, but nothing, so we started walking again. We had gone maybe 15 more yards, almost to where we wanted to be, when we both heard it. It was an unmistakable sound to us, we had heard many turkeys gobble before this season, but hadn�t gotten them in for a shot. It sure was a sight, Dad and I both stopped with a foot up in the air when the bird called. It was coming from our right, and Dad told me to set up at the edge of the woods that was jutting out (It came out from the left side) and he would put our decoy out, in the corner of the left side of the field. I knew the turkey was closer to where we had come from before, so I sat facing our path we had just come across. Dad hopped down next to me, and got both of his calls out, putting his shotgun down across his lap. He told me to be ready, because it sounded like the birds were coming. I put my shotgun'� forend on my knee, and waited, while Dad called a few more times, the bird answering each time. A few times, it called twice, which I thought was unusual, but kept looking. After about 10 minutes (which is an eternity in the hunting world), I saw a big red head pop up over a little knoll to our left now. I whispered it to my dad, and he said, �Keep still, how far is it?� I was just about ready to tell him when another one popped up about 5 yards to the left of the 1st bird. I whispered, �Wait! There�s another one with it. They�re about 250 yards away.� Dad looked, and I could tell he saw it, but neither one of us said a word. He had both of the calls between his legs, and could actually use them, because the turkey could see them from that distance, but they were hidden through the underbrush and his legs. He worked the slate call, and both birds gobbled at once. I saw their birds from this distance, even thought they were only about 5 inches long. They came in slowly, the bright sun shining off of their feathers. I sat there, and in 5 minutes, they came about 75 yards. The gun started to seem a little heavy then, but I kept it up, knowing if I put it down, the turkeys would run away. I watched their every move, now about 175 yards away. Every minute they came just a little farther, a little farther. The weight of the gun was starting to bother me after about 10 minutes (it was no longer resting on my knee, because I would have to move it too much when they were closer in to put the bead on their neck), but they were only about half of the way into me. My dad kept calling every once in a while, not too much, but just enough to keep them interested. They would look at us, where the hen calls were coming from, and then would turn to look at the hen decoy off our right shoulder about 30 yards away from us. I just started concentrating on keeping the gun held up, and paying less attention to where the turkeys were. After about 20 minutes from the 1st time I saw a turkey head pop up over a knoll, to now, and Dad whispered very quietly that they were close enough to shoot now. We thought it was about 30 yards, and I eased the safety off under my index finger, and set both of the beads on the turkey�s neck. I squeezed the shot off, and the heavy turkey load rocked my whole body back, but I still saw the turkey I was aiming at go down, and the other ran across the field. My dad threw his shotgun to his shoulder, and shot, when the turkey was REALLY far off. I was really surprised when the turkey dropped to his shot, too. We jumped up and patted each other on the back, Dad then told me to go look at my bird while he got the decoy. I walked out to my bird, and it turned out to be 37 yards, instead of around 30. Dad walked back to me after he put the decoy in the back of his vest, and came out to me. He looked at my bird and smiled, but started towards his bird. He stopped a few steps past me and said, �Don�t move!� I turned my head to see what he was talking about, and his turkey was standing up, with its head down. My dad slowly shouldered his shotgun again, and shot the bird in the head. It went down this time, for good. We both compared our birds, and they were the same size, and we walked out of the woods with them on our shoulders and a smile on our faces�
