Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 14. 2006, 5:00 am. Wake up call. I woke up before the alarm sounded and knew it was a good sign. I still "snoozed" for 10 min thinking we had plenty of time before daylight. 5:10, I went to Katie’s room and to my amazement, she was awake sitting on her bed. I asked if she wanted to go and, of course, the reply was "yep".

She was dressed and ready to go in 15 minutes. We loaded the gear and off we were. We arrived at the spot a few minutes later. We got out of the truck and Katie could hear the gobblers sounding off. It surprised me at that hour but, it was a full moon and a very bright morning. We hurried to the field and found our spot to set up. I set the decoys in the field and Katie set the 5 gallon buckets in the brush under a tree at the side of the field for us to sit on. With the decoys set and a place to sit, we settled in. Katie took out one of the #4 magnum 16ga. loads that I bought for her to use and broke open the single shot 16ga Springfield shotgun that originally belonged to her Great Grandfather Arends and loaded it. We sat and waited.

The Gobblers had gone silent. I called a few times to see if I could get a reply, nothing. I poured myself a cup of coffee from my thermos and sat and listened for any sign of action, still nothing. It was about ½ hour into daylight and my legs and feet were falling asleep from sitting on a bucket. I needed to stand and streach them out. Just as I got to an almost upright position, I caught a movement at the edge of the field. A hen Turkey was coming out of the woods. I had to sit back down and my feet were still tingling.

Two hens came out and fed about 60 yards away. They pecked around at that distance for about 15 minutes and then disappeared back into the woods. My legs and feet were about totally numb at this point so, I start to stand up slowly. We had a pretty good spot to sit and between the weeds and the tree branches, my movement was well camouflaged. I got my legs straightened and I was bent at the waist, looking through the tree branches and here we go again. One hen came swooping down into the field from her roosting spot in the woods and then another and another. I sat back down and told Katie to get ready. By the time it was over, 7 birds had come out of the trees and into the field.

I got my call out and began putting softly to gain their attention. It was working. They were walking and feeding their way right toward the decoys. The only problem was that it appeared that they were all hens. Their heads were down, pecking at the ground almost the entire time. Every head that came up was a hen.

Katie was sitting on her bucket with her shotgun on her lap with the barrel pointed to the field. I am sure that she was feeling a bit of disappointment. The lead bird finally worked it’s way up to the decoys and figured something was wrong. Her head shot up and she began putting to the others. All heads are up and what do we see? A Jake. It blended right in with the hens because it was a young gobbler and had not gotten the full colors of a mature bird but, the beard was obvious. I told Kate to lift her gun to her shoulder as slowly as possible and to try to do it when they weren't looking.

The birds began to walk away from the decoys and that gave her the opportunity to get ready. I told her to pull the hammer back and as soon as the Jake sticks it’s head up again, let her rip. I had my call in my mouth so, I gave a little call. The heads came up again and bang! I had my gun ready for back up but, not needed. The bird is down. At the same moment as I saw the bird go down, I hear an "Oh $%#@!!! from Kate. I turn around to see my daughter flopping around on her butt almost as bad as the Turkey. The shot had knocked her off of her bucket on her butt in a patch of itch weed. She asked "did I get him?" I said "yep" as I pulled her to her feet so she could see her bird. By that time she was laughing so hard she could not see the bird through the tears in her eyes.

We retrieved her bird, picked up our gear and headed back to the truck. We put the guns in the truck and I got another cup of Coffee. It was then that I confessed about what I had done to her.

Before the start of the season, I had Katie practice shoot the gun so she would know what to expect and how to shoot the gun. I gave her a load of light duty #8 Dove & Quail load to practice with. I didn’t tell her that the load she would be shooting at Turkey was a heavy duty magnum load mainly because I didn’t want her to be scared to shoot. It worked, she shot, the bird was bagged and she went for a little ride!!

I know I will never forget Katie’s first hunt and I am sure that she won’t either. We had a good hunt and a better laugh! Katie walked out of the woods with her first Turkey that weighed 16.3 lbs. It had a 4 ½" beard and ½' spurs. She shot it at 6:55 am and we were home by 7:15. What a morning!

Bad picture with a disposable camera. Wouldn't you know it, no film in the good camera and the digital broke!! Oh Well We have the memories.