For the last two years my son Hunter has hunted the youth turkey weekend here in NH with a shotgun, this year he made it clear that he would be hunting with the bow he so graciously received at Shawn's Bunny hunt. This weekend is youth weekend here in NH, so off we went this morning. Hunter has been practicing at short ranges, and we decided that we would limit his shots to ten yards or less.
I had set our blind yesterday morning, and hadn't been in it for five minutes when two toms and a jake walked by in full strut at five yards. I sat there wishing it was today.
This morning we were setup before daylight, and there were birds all around making noise, Hunter was plenty excited. About a half hour after daylight a bearded hen walked by us, but at 15 yards was too far to shoot. Ten minutes later I look toward the woodline and see the same two birds from yesterday at the edge of the woods. They see the decoys in front of our blind and start right for them, here they are at about twelve yards.......
They keep coming and get right between the jake and hen decoy, and I tell Hunter to shoot the second bird. I can hear his heavy breathing, ok maybe it was mine too, wouldn't you know it the birds change position. Hunter draws and shoots at 6 yards.........here is the result....
A clean miss!!! If you look close you can see the string from his string tracker just to the right of the decoys......
Hunter was still very excited, this being his first real experience shooting an arrow at a game animal. I asked how he felt, he said, "Dad, I couldn't stop my legs from shaking."
Later we talked about the shot and how excited he was, and the fact that it was better to have a clean miss than to wound an animal.
We won't be able to hunt tomorrow, but will be out together again during the regular season next week.
I can honestly say that seeing him hunt and his excitment at having an oppotunity is simply an awesome thing to be part of. He has already asked me who will shoot if we are hunting together and a bird comes in.......it is all his.
David
Topic: Hunter's First Bowhunt for Turkeys (Read 555 times)
