It started out on Saturday with just a perfect morning with no wind and the warm temperature. My 10 yr. old daughter and I headed to a spot where I have seen a coulple of birds strutting everytime I went by to check. I have been saving these birds for the kids since it would be their first chance to harvest a tom. Well they sounded like they was across the road but sooner or later they would be in there strutting. About 7:30 I got an answer out of both of them they are about 100yds from us and coming. They came in to about 35 yds and that was a pretty long shot for her so we elected to pass until they got closer. They left and never did get out of sight probably about 100yds from where they came from. So it was time to get them going, so I started cutting and it got their attention. Here they come again the big boy strutted all the way in the smaller tom in tow. This time they came in to about 30 yds. She was all ready to shoot and she asked me if her legs are supposed to be shaking that bad, I told her that was just excitement of the size of the bird. I got a good look at the spurs the first time he came in and they looked like they were about 1 1/2" long and a good beard. She was ready to try it and she shot over his head a clean miss. Boy was she ever upset with herself, all the practice and a miss. The next morning she didn't want to go so he brother went with me it was his turn to take a shot at a bird. We set up about 60yds from where we was the day before in his strut zone. A bird gobbled at us on the roost and once on the ground and left without being seen. One tom came in about 9:00 and stayed out to far for a shot. Then out of south came a big red head sneaking thru the gooseberries and coming our way. My 8 yr old son got turned to catch him walking in but the tom had other ideas he came on the dead run right to the jake on the hen decoys in his strut zone. By then I had the bow in hand and he was still turned the wrong way for a shot. He told me to shoot before he gets away when he hit the decoys at 13 yds he made a mistake of stopping long enuf for me to get a shot. Complete pass thru and and two back flips later he was done. It was the same bird that my daughter missed the day before. He had 1 3/8" & 1 7/16" spurs with a 10 3/4" beard and weighed 21#. The kids will be after them next weekend and they told me that they wouldn' be shaking and scared of shooting and missing then. But the way I look at is, any time you can spend with your kids is great and spending it in a blind turkey hunting is the greatest. I will post a picture hopefully later today.
