PA Youth Season

[petey]

Today was PA's 1 day early youth turkey season, which is one week prior to the regular season.

Two nights ago my taxidermist called me up and asked if I could help him get his 12 year old boy his first turkey. I jumped at the chance to get out there and pass on the tradition, so we arranged to meet around 5 AM this morning during the next two nights.

Yesterday the rain started around 2 PM and never stopped until this afternoon. On my way home from work I saw 8 separate gobblers and 3 hens. Even though it was raining I figured I'd take a ride and see if I could find a few birds out in the field since it had been raining for 6-7 hrs straight. Good thing I did... I found 2 longbeard with 6 hens last night around 7 and figured we could get set up on those this morning knowing that they wouldn't have gone too far.

Arriving at our meeting place at 5 AM I quickly rolled down the window as the rain was sprinkling but the thunder and lightning was crashing. Immediatly I heard a gobble after the first thunder-boom, then another and another. Waiting for the rest of the crew to show up I listened to what should turn out to be a good morning even though it was raining. At 5:15 is started to pour, but let up enough at 5:30 to get out and set up on those birds I had hear earlier. We had a total of 2 hunters and 3 non-hunters including myself, My taxidermist, his dad, his boy, his nephew who had just turned 12 also and me. as soon as I saw the crew I figured that this should be interesting hunting with 5 guys considering it's hard enough to hide 2 or even 1 person sometimes! Well We got in about 100 yard from the roosted birds making all the noise. I set the two gunners 40 yards apart with their adult and I backed off 20 and waited until the birds hit the ground. During that wait these birds were just gobblin like crazy and it almost made me think that they were jakes by the way they were acting, but I figured they had to be those 2 longbeards I saw not more than 200 yards away the night before. I took me about 2 minutes to call in the small flock and my taxidermist's boy made an easy 18 yard shot on a nice jake!... Yup turns out they were jakes...all three of them. Well needless to say everyone was happy and I'd say we spoiled the new hunter by only taking about 20 minutes total from the truck to kill his first bird on the first day of his first hunt ever! I told him that it wasn't always this easy after he made the comment of "I can't believe how stupid they are" ha ha.. how little do those youngsters know.

AS we walked back to unload the first bird I figured I'd call and see if we could get an answer. After the first series I had an answer about 100 yards away. We set up for the second hunter to get his chance. ....The bird only gobbled once and never again. Very typical since it was raining. After about a 20 minute wait we got the 1st bird back to the truck and headed back to get the 2nd youngster his bird. 15 minutes in and I had another bird answer way off. We closed another 300 yards and set up in some planted pines that had a logging road cut through it. I put out the decoys and started to call. After about three series of calls I got an answer about 80 yards off. 30 seconds later I see a nice longbeard running our way. I was 10 yards behind and to the right of the hunter and adult and the bird came well into gun range for me. Unfortunately the young hunter moved his gun at the wrong time and the bird spun around at the 25 yards mark and was gone a quick as he came. One of many lessons I'm sure he'll learn. I sure would have been nice for him to kill that ol boy, but it wasn't ment to be this morning. I had a few other birds answer the rest of the morning, but with the steady rain and downpours, it was more of a call and wait for a silent bird to come in. All in all it was a great day.... Should have had 2 birds by 8 AM but the boys had a great time and I'm sure they are hooked on hunting those "stupid" birds ... ha ha I'm glad I was able to help them out