Well before the season or shortly after last season, my youngest son comes to me and tells me he wants to change it up next year (2023) and wants to go after the slam for his 18th birthday. I figured I’d put in the time, boots on the ground and plenty of e-scouting and exhausted nights, oh yeah, and plenty of You Tube Videos which my wife can come test too, and so the process starts. I was able to pick the brains of a few here and there and picked the areas I wanted to hunt.
My son took first place in the Skills USA Wood Working Competition and State was on Friday and Saturday Opening Turkey Season. So we have everything g packed up and we head to Camp 1 of the season Saturday afternoon. With no birds roosted the night before, our morning alarm was trees filled with gobblers…yes that was easy on the ears and getting out of bed was just as easy, the hunt is on.
I brought my cousin to our annual Turkey camp and he had a couple of days to hunt with us. Our goal was to get him his first bird and the final hour he struck gold…his first bird!
Next day my son and I tag out, I took a double and my son took his 1 Marriam's and now we head to locate his Rio.
5 hours later we arrive to camp 2 for the slam and the birds are just stunning. We head to an area we wanted to hunt, we found several birds, watched them to go roost and we set up his pop up blind which he got for his birthday week and staked it down for the morning hunt. On our drive back to camp, we were talking about how Text Book this hunt was and should do well in the morning. Well, just when you think it’s text book the birds rewrite the script…dude the Tom went straight up hill and the hens pitched down in the fields. No bueno.
We are now day 6 into our hunt, several busted stocks and set up and we are exhausted. We thought to ourselves it may be time to settle for what he can get so we can head home get some rest and regroup. Just as we are taking a turn for the worst, Boomshakalaka…a group of jacks make their way in front of us and my son takes the best shot he had and bird #2 Rio down and 1 more to go for the slam.
Well bird #3 is not going well and my research and areas where I’ve seen the elusive ghost bird/Eastern are no where to be found. At least we have until the end of May to get it done in order for my son to fulfill his birthday dream of the Washington Slam. The hunt continues.
