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Friday, 26 June 2009 08:22 |
 Youth Day 2009 by Dave Call It was Youth day 2009 and it was raining. Although the hats were wet the spirit was not dampened. My friend John Silke and his daughter, Angela Silke who is 13, and myself sat in the early morning dark waiting for the first gobble of the season. Then it happened several gobbles from the wrong place. We made a move and set up next to a field and tried to call. The toms were all henned up and didn't pay us any attention. We did have a lone hen come and look for what she thought was one of her friends, well upon not finding any turkeys she left, but not before getting to within 20 feet of Angela. The day started pretty good. We left that area and hunted some other places with no luck. We stopped and grabbed a bite to eat on the way home around 11:00. John and I were both thinking that this day is the best chance for Angela to get her bird, so we made one last dash to the place we started at that morning. We walked up some trails and onto an old road calling as we walked. We got out to the field where the turkey's had been that morning, and nothing... On the way back I said, "I'll give it one more try". It was 11:50. From across the field a gobble. I didn't think we could bring him all the way across a 300yd field in 10 minutes. But we had to try. John and Angela got to the edge of the field and I climbed up behind them with my camera and started to call. The tom gobbled a couple of times and John turned and said they might run across the field to cut the distance, but just then a tom and a jake came over the top of a knoll. I told John to turn around slow as I could see them. I started to call and to my amazement they started to run straight to us. The jake was leading but the tom soon took care of that and ran him out of the way. The tom is now at 20 yds and I am watching though the camera waiting for the shot, and nothing. Under my breath I'm saying shoot shoot. I look at John and see he and Angela moving, something is wrong. The turkey gets beyond my sight and then Bang, and the turkey is flopping on the ground..Yea. I asked John what happened, and he said Angela had trouble taking the safety off. So I didn't get the kill shot But Angela got the bird... Oh ya the time was 11:57. It may not have been text book but it was Real and it was Fun. The bird had 3/4"& 3/4" spurs and a 9" beard it weighed 21lbs.  Angela Silke, age 13 From Dixmont, Maine Harvested in Dixmont |
