03/27/2024
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Opening day of the 2018 Wild Turkey season came in on April 14th, after many days of glassing the field, setting up ground blind, the day finally arrives. Sitting in the blind with the man who introduced me and my twin brother to hunting, hoping that old longbeard would come strutting by us. As the sun rises, a gobble, then another and another. I looked at dad and said, he is behind us and coming to the field. No better sound in my book than hearing a turkey gobble, GOD sure had me in mind when He created the turkey!

Suddenly a hen and another walk into the field. Then suddenly, Mr. Tom struts in, then as we both sit there with excitement flowing through our veins, another tom comes into the field. With our hearts racing, we watch them strut around on the opposite end of the field. These turkeys would never make it to our end of the field, they had other things on their minds… a sense of disappointment seemed to enter into my mind. All I wanted out of that day was to get a tom in front of dad and give him the opportunity to harvest his first turkey…fast forward about 2 hours later… after I brief ride for a biscuit,we get a phone call, hey, there are 2 toms in the field right now.

We drove by and saw 2 toms strutting in the field and I looked at daddy and said, “ Got your crawling knees on?” Dad answered and said, I will do the best I can.” We entered the edge of the road, we looked as if we were after the enemy… you see my dad had crawled and walked around the jungles of Vietnam, fighting for the freedom that I enjoy everyday! So we crawled 80 yards on our stomachs behind a decoy, stopping to let him catch his breath every 5 or 6 yards. Suddenly, the turkey saw us and came running to us, I whispered and said get the gun up, he’s coming! I was trying to watch the turkey and I saw the shotgun barrel ease by my head… Dad said, where’s the safety? I said, “it is where it is at on every other gun, on the trigger guard!”

I remember hearing a click and then BOOM! That ol’turkey flipped over!

I have never been more excited to see someone else harvest a turkey than I was that day!! I don’t know who was smiling the most, me or him! As we were laying flat of our stomachs I said,” that just made my turkey season complete!” I said a small prayer while we were laying there, thanking GOD for helping dad along the way…

Dad’s tom had a 10” beard and 1” spurs, but most importantly, the memory will forever be etched in my mind!!!

Congrats Dad, a great bird, and thank you for all the sacrifices you made for our family… enjoy the trophy and one more thing….

YOU ARE HOOKED NOW!!!

Jeffrey Gause

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