Crow Busters Forum

I know this isn't about crows........but I had to share with you guys. I know you can appreciate how I feel.

Dad will be 75 next month. He just went through a couple years fighting prostate cancer and just when they said he had beat it, they have found something else "suspicious" on his kidney.

About a month ago he told me that he wanted to shoot a turkey. So I made up my mind that I was going to do all I could to help him get his turkey.  I have been doing some scouting, but every evening that I tried to put them to bed in their roost trees, I couldn't find them. However, Tuesday night I searched a spot and found lots of droppings, dust bowls and tracks.

I picked him up yesterday morning at 4:30 ad we were sitting under a tree on the edge of a hay field by 4:50.  Legal light was 4:59.  I set up a feeding hen decoy 20 yards in front of us and set my Foxpro on the ground under the decoy.  At 5am I turned the call to hen clucks.  A turkey gobbled way across the field and in the woods at our "1 o'clock."  I would hit the caller, he would gobble every 2 minutes or so. Every time that he gobbled we could tell he was getting closer. About 5:15 he appeared on the edge of the field. He hung around there a few minutes. I hit the caller again and he started running toward the decoy. He ran about 200 yards to get to us. He stopped at 30 yards and Dad shot him with one of my old Nitro Special double 12's. This gun is 11 years older than Dad.  One shot to the head dropped him. To make it more special for me, he used one of my reloads. Low brass 2 and 3/4" cartridge, 1 and 1/8 ounce of #5 shot. Having the Foxpro right with the decoy and away from us really helped to cover our movements.

We were so happy when he dropped it. It was much more than killing the turkey, it may sound dorky to say, but the time together making memories was greatest part. I'm not afraid to say we both of us got tears in our eyes when we hugged. We were all done before the sun even came up.

Here are a few photos I took;

I really like this photo, he never knew I even took the picture as we were walking out.