This year we were allowed to hunt turkeys in the fall for the first time and myself and the better half tagged out right at the beginning of the fall season.
I was talking to one of my Army buddies at work about the hunt and as is typical of guys in the service who move around a lot it can be tough to find a place to hunt, so I invited him to join me ... he asked if could take his twelve year old daughter out with us as this was her first season of hunting. We got her out in the spring and couldn't connect but we made up for it in the fall season! After her hunt I asked her to write up the story ... so here it is in her own words
It all started with the most important thing… preparation. I practiced shooting with my dad whenever we had the chance and we always prepared all our clothes and equipment properly to make sure that we were comfortable. Even before I got my license I went out turkey hunting with my dad to watch him and practice. The first season where I got my license it was spring and we saw two jakes. Not giant ones, but not smalls ones either. We waited for fifteen minutes to see if they would come into shooting range. They didn’t. And that was the end of my first turkey hunt.
The next time I went it was the fall season. The weekend before I shot my first turkey, I went turkey hunting in a blind. I woke up around 4:30 in the morning and when I and a friend of my dad’s were finally ready it was the very beginning of legal hunting time. We waited and waited then we heard turkey calls. They were calling each other and then a couple minutes later three hens came in. I put my gun in place, I aimed, I shot and... I missed. They flew away and never came back.
A week after that I went hunting again. We had prepared everything the night before and we were all ready to go in minutes. We went out and waited. And nothing happened. No calls, no turkeys, no nothing. After that we went back home and decided we’d go out a bit later. When it was time to go we got ready and set up in a different spot. We waited for at most an hour and a half. And then a turkey showed up. It was a small hen, but then right behind came another hen. And another. In all there were about 5 to 6 hens, and we think there was still a couple more farther behind. I slowly took aim and shot. Right on target. All the other turkeys flew away and all that was left was the one. I was so excited. We quickly went over to make sure it was dead. It was. It was so exciting. We waited for our other hunting friends to come. We took some pictures and went home early. No better way to end a hunt. (;
P.S. Thank you very much for giving me such a wonderful opportunity. It was a moment of a lifetime and I’m extremely grateful. You are both very kind. Thank you very much.
Abigail is a 12-year old hunter from Ontario, Canada
I am pretty impressed with this young lady, makes me think there is hope for the future yet
![Smile :) :)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@14.0.2/assets/72x72/1f642.png)
She definitely has an open invitation for next season!
Here she is with her dad who also managed to connect that day!