by Clark Schmitz
As the 2019 spring turkey season approached, Gary McCrill was extremely excited for the season to arrive as he would have a new hunting partner this year. Gary and his wife Karen live on an acreage in rural Akron, Ia. and have been enjoying outdoor activities and hunting for many years.
Gary and Karen are avid bow hunters and have had success hunting whitetail deer and elk. In the fall of 2018 Gary and his son Justin traveled to Idaho to hunt elk. The duo had success in Gary taking a nice bull.
As April approached a new outdoor experience would focus on Marshall, Gary’s grandson. Marshall is 9 years old and Gary felt old enough to learn about gun safety and be able to get proficient enough with his 20 gauge shot gun to accept the challenge of a turkey hunt with his grandfather.
Their hunt preparation began weeks prior to their hunt. Practice with slate turkeys calls helped prepare Marshall for his first hunt. Next Gary supervised Marshall’s practice with the 20 gauge shotgun he would be using on the hunt. With targets that resembled the head of a turkey Marshall demonstrated that he could in deed keep his shot pattern on target.
The day before youth season opened they located a good spot to put their pop-up blind and decoys. With everything at the blind sight ready, they headed home in eager anticipation of the next morning’s first hunt.
Marshall had no problem getting up well before first light the next morning. They got to their blind, put out a strutter, hen and jake decoy and got into position in the blind. It wasn’t long and gobbles were heard in the distance. Their calling got responses but as time went on it was obvious the turkeys were moving away. The first morning hunt ended with no turkeys coming near their location. Not discouraged they headed home planning on being back in the blind the next morning.
The following morning they were back in the blind before first light, with decoys in place. Not long after settling in, gobbles were heard to the East and West of the blind. Their calls were answered and they continued a dialog with the turkeys located west of the blind. At approx. 7:30 am Marshall spotted two long beards 150 yards west of their blind. The turkeys responded to their calls and were slowly working their way. They continued to call and noticed a hen was also working their way. After several minutes passed the gobblers were finally getting close to shooting distance. As Marshall readied his gun to shoot, the turkeys changed direction and forced Marshall to change windows to get a clear shot. The gobblers had now gotten well with-in range and once again changed direction and again forced Marshall to change shooting windows. Having successfully relocated the gun without the turkeys noticing, a few more calls were made to get a gobbler to expose his head / neck for a shot. Gary whispered to Marshall to aim at the neck and squeeze the trigger. Marshall did just that. Bang! The report of the gun boomed in the blind as the two hunters watched as one of the big gobblers tumbled to the ground. A second of silence was followed by Marshall exclaiming “I got him, I got him”, followed by “my ears are ringing”!
The two happy hunters made their way to the big tom that was doing a couple of last death flaps as they arrived. Marshall had harvested his first turkey, a mature tom with a 9” beard and 7/8 inch spurs.
Congratulations to Marshall for harvesting a great turkey and Gary for introducing a new hunter to the thrill of hunting and the great outdoors. Gary later shared with me that in all his years of hunting experiences, the family hunts are the best with his grandson’s first harvest being very rewarding.
