Best Hunting Memory

[zelmo1]

What is your best hunting memory, any game. We talk about this all the time. There should be some good stories out there.


funnyturkey: Best hunting memory was the oldest son's first turkey. He let a monster gobbler and the jake he eventually killed walk by at less than 10 yards because there was some brush and they never stopped. We let them go and caught up to them later. They caught us with our pants down and we had to "hide" behind one sickly Charlie Brown bush and he sat on my knee. They came on both sides of us and he was on the jake solid and took the shot. I jumped up frantically looking for the bird and to reload his gun, he looked at me  and said" dad, don't panic , he is dead right there" as calmly as could be. When we got to that beautiful jake, his face lit up like a christmas tree. He never complained about shooting the jake and not trying to get that monster gobbler, buddy shot him 2 days later, 24lb monster. He said it was "the right thing to do", pretty proud of a 10 year old for that. I hope we have another story to write. Enjoy, Al Baker

[Tail Feathers]

Tied between grandson #2 killing his first deer and grandson #1 killing his first turkey.
I've had some awesome moments, but seeing them have the "firsts" is special.

[Mike Honcho]

Hard to pick the best so many are great memories:

Grandson Kolbi 1st deer at age 9, a 7 point buck he shot with a Win 44 mag lever gun...he was napping, I woke him up and he shot the buck!

Grandson Kolbi 1st turkey age 9, called a tom in from about 300 yds away...strutted out at 25 yds in front of our ground blind...Kolbi had ice in his veins...raised his little NEF 20 ga. single shot up real slow and smoked him. I'll never forget the sight of him carrying that bird back to the truck over his shoulder...I was behind him and he turned back to look at me with a huge grin on his face...bird was almost bigger than he was and I have a photo of that moment.

Grandson Kolbi's 1st buck with a bow...I was with him in another stand about 60 yds from him.

Grandson Tanner's 1st turkey (after missing some the previous season).  Nice Rio he took with his Mossy Bantam 20 turkey gun.

[ep427]

I think my fondest was when I was young and my dad sat me on his knee and let me shoot his gun. It was the first time I shot a shotgun and I was hooked. I have alot of memories with my dad but that is my best. I still have my dad and hope to for a long time but for the ones that don't sorry.

[J Hook Max]

 I guess it's a tie. Watching my grandkids shoot their first gobblers. The look in their eyes was priceless.
The last hunt with my dad ranks right up there too.

[bamagtrdude]

MANY MANY MANY, but ...  just made one with my brother a few weeks ago, deer hunting...  He'd been "down on his luck", so we went hunting together in a new blind he'd built...  Right at dark, a doe walks out right in front of him, I whisper, "Brian, there's a doe!"  and he's looking WAAAAYYY OFF in the distance, and I'm like, "Brian, she's RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!" and he's like, "Oh, there she is!" and as he's pulling up his gun, he BUMPS THE WOOD IN THE BLIND - she stops STONE COLD, and my heart SANK!!!!

But he manages to get the scope on her and, *kkaaaa-BLOOM - PLOP*!!  He nails her; she does the donkey kick in the muzzle blast, and dude...  I thought we were gonna come un-glued; high-5's & knuckle-mashes & giggles GALORE...  Sure enough, he popped her good...

He told me afterwards, "I think that was the MOST FUN HUNT I've been on in YEARS"... and I was like, "Me too, buddy"...  I love my brother, Brian; he has selflessly spent SO MUCH TIME with me, teaching me the "ropes" in the woods...  I look forward to many more memories like that in the future, esp as we rear his young boy who's 4 into the ways of hunting...

BGD

[Tommy Strutsalot]

Although this is a very difficult question, I think I've chosen my favorite.  I'll do my best to make a really long story short, but I think most of you will find this read worth your time.

A close hunting buddy and I decided to head upstate to turkey camp in NE PA.  When we arrived Friday evening it was too late to try and roost birds, so we decided to hit the local watering hole for a couple brews and some wings.  Well, a couple turned into several, and we ended up nearly closing the bar down, it was well after midnight when  our old lady bartender friend declared that there was no way in he11 that either one of us drunks would be getting anywhere near a turkey in the morning.

Fast forward to 7:45 am the following morning and I'm awaken by the sunlight shining through the window of camp on my position on the floor.  I frantically rise to my feet, and wake up my buddy Cory.  At this point, it had seemed that we had driven 3 hours to get drunk at a bar and sleep in.  I guess our old lady bartender friend was right after all... or was she?

We rushed up the mountain to get setup, but after about an hour of hunting, we realized we had nothing to sustain our hunting through the day, including no water.  We decided to head back down to camp with our tails between our legs and regroup.  When we got to camp we kicked a jake off the driveway, and heard a gobbler hammer off up on the mountainside, not far from where we had just come.  We decided to grab some water, go to the bathroom and rush back out after these birds.

On our way up the mountain, we spot the group of birds working from low to high in a  mountain side pasture, they were moving deliberately and had beaten us to the intended setup.  We decided to back out into the woods, so as not to bump or alarm the birds, and loop around to a tractor road where we though they would eventually be heading.  By this time, it's almost 11:00 and for much of the PA Spring Gobbler season, hunting is over at noon. 

We get set up, and birds respond to our calls in short order, and eventually skirt our setup just barely out of range.   Before long, I watched two mature gobblers break off and circle, and began to slowly approach our setup, strutting the entire way. 

Now, here's where it gets interesting.  Cory had been involved in a fishing accident at a very young age, and lost his right eye.  We had set up in such haste, that we set up with me on the righthand side, the side where he had limited vision, and him on the left.  As luck would have it, it was from the right side that these two longbeards were slowly approaching.  I understood what was happening, but it was too late to fix. 

The first longbeard entered shotgun range and presented a shot to me, but I decided to let him walk and wait for the trailing bird to get into range, and hopefully we could pull a double.  Meanwhile, Cory only sees the lead bird, and believes that this bird has come in alone. He was oblivious to the additional longbeard approaching the setup. 

As the trailing bird struts himself into a range, I click off the safety, put it on his waddles and let the #5's fly, killing him stone dead.  Cory, believing I had missed, makes an incredible snapshot on the other longbeard as it was running away.  He was wearing I-Kam video glasses, and the whole thing is on video.  Cory, being the humble guy that he is, begins profusely apologizing on video, assuming that I had missed and he had made a heroic cleanup shot on my bird at my spot.  It took every bit of 30 seconds, and me repeatedly screaming "DOUBLE!!" and pointing,  to convince him that there was two dead birds in the woods. 

Checked my cell phone for the time, 11:47 am, thirteen minutes before the end of legal hunting. After a short celebration, we barely said a word... we knew exactly what needed to be done. 

We grabbed our beautiful longbeards, and rushed down the mountainside in a hurry, almost falling multiple times we were moving so quickly.  We ran down to camp, tossed our two trophies in the truck and jumped in and were on the move leaving a cloud of dust rising from the dirt road behind us...

It was time to go back to that bar and pay our old lady bartender friend a visit.  We made it just in time for her to be starting her shift.  Needless to say, we were heroes for the day...




Had to set the timer to get us both...

[Green Trumpeter]

Tough to choose, I always enjoy being able to hunt with my dad and it's great when I can call a gobbler in for him.

My first bird completely alone was both an exciting and rewarding hunt.

Another hunt that was special because it was so rewarding was the gobbler I took on the second last day of the season last year.  I took that gobbler on one of the first properties I ever turkey hunted.  My first year on that property I barely knew what I was doing and heard a few gobblers but they seemed to vanish off the roost. I never even saw a bird that season.  Last year I struggled to find many birds on the properties that I am usually successful on.  Near the end of the season I turned back to the property from my first season and was finally able to take a nice gobbler.  That hunt was like redemption for my very frustrating first season and showed me how far I have come in turkey hunting.

[stinkpickle]

I'm sure I have a favorite...just can't remember it right now. 

[Longshot]

My dad, family, friends and I have all had some great hunts together, but this hunt with my son from April 20, 2013 is still my favorite hunting memory by far.

http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,35662.msg362419.html#msg362419

I wanted to share (& brag) about my son and his hunt today. My boy Noah is 10 years old and has a cognitive disorder. Nothing comes easy for him, but he is a fighter and when he sets his mind to something...you can consider it done. This year after the youth waterfowl season, he decided he wanted to get a turkey this spring. We hunted hard without much success for the last 7 weeks. Everything finally came together for us this morning on our last chance to hunt this season. Today, Noah got to see everything that you can hope to see in a spring gobbler hunt. He heard a tom gobble on the roost, watched him strut for a hen, respond and come to a call, and get aggressive with my Jake decoy at 12 yards. Noah showed patience beyond his 10 years waiting on the tom to clear a hen and a subordinate gobbler before taking his shot. His little 20 gauge barked and the tom laid motionless 15 yards in front of us. As I started to celebrate, Noah said "wait, I want to pray." He bowed his head and thanked God for blessing him and then we started celebrating. I think we are raising him right. Noah's first turkey was an Osceola turkey that weighed 19 lbs, had a 9" beard and 1" spurs. It was way more fun watching him get a turkey than getting one myself.

[mudhen]

Would have to be one of my doubles....

Nebraska maybe?  Called in a nice 3 y.o. tom, shot him at 25 yards....his buddy gobbled at the shot...I froze...did a little mouth calling...worked on his buddy for 5 mins maybe, dropped the 4 y.o. about 3 feet from the first bird....

Fun carrying 48 lbs of turkeys out of the woods!


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