This past weekend Lindsey and I went to Texas with our Resistence TV crew to do some turkey hunting for a future episode. Those of you who know me won’t believe this, but I hunted turkeys three days in a row, had turkeys all around us — and I never raised a gun.
Why? Lindsey is 30-years old and she’s never cared anything about turkey hunting. But a couple of weeks ago, she came and said she wanted to try. So we did. We hunted hard. She got to experience the tough times and the elation of success. Here’s how it went.
It’s a little early and we ran into some issues with the gobblers being all henned up. We’d get them coming and then the next thing you know, the hens would lead them off somewhere else. We really had to hunt hard. But we had some good opportunities. I’ll probably get in trouble for telling this, but the first two shots Lindsey had — she missed. Hey, that’s understandable. It happens to a lot of new turkey hunters. After that second miss, I knew she was going to be a turkey hunter. She was so mad she wouldn’t even talk to anybody. We walked in a good mile and a quarter on our next trip out and she walked so fast to get there, she was set up and waiting on us before we even got in sight. Once you get mad at them, you’re hooked.
Then she got one. I’ve never seen her so excited. In fact, she got three for the weekend. In Texas, the limit is four and you can take them all at once or over the entire season. I was enjoying her experience so much I didn’t even want to go after one myself.
The highlight was on Sunday when she got a big gobbler that went over 20 pounds and had a 10 1/2 inch beard and 1 1/4 inch spurs. It was a picture perfect hunt. The gobbler flew down from a tree, gobbled, strutted and drummed right out in front of us. She had a picture perfect shot and she smoked him. I was proud. I knew I had another turkey hunter in the family. It was a real challenge hiding three of us and being still and quiet for the cameras, but we did it. She had a steep learning curve and got the hang of it pretty quickly. In a sport like turkey hunting, you’ve got to learn from your mistakes and she did a great job.
Click on the IMG link below to see a short video of that kill:
We’ll share more about our Texas hunting and more news from home in an upcoming report.
