cooper's turkey

[jackelope]

i'll let 300wsm come on here and tell the story, but i figured these pic's of this kid and his first animal of any kind ever deserved their own thread...
way to go, cooper, you got a good one.

[boneaddict]

Waiting to hear the adventure.......NICE job COOPER!

[DeKuma]

WAY TO START IT OFF COOPER!

[WARHORSE]

 

[Head-shot]

Good job cooper

[Michelle_Nelson]

  GREAT JOB Cooper!  That is a nice looking bird.  Can't wait to read the story!

[LongTatLaw]

Thats a pretty bird brother man! Great job!

Cant wait to hear the story!

Ya gonna fan him out or what?

[popeshawnpaul]

Snow bird.  Must've been up high.  Cant wait to hear the story as well.  Wish the pics were larger than 320 px.

[robodad]

Priceless !!

[huntingnut]

Nice bird Cooper, congrats on an excellent first kill.

[300wsm]

O.K. Sorry it took so long to get the story out. 
Cooper just completed his hunters ed. at the end of March, but we had been planning this trip since January.  He was so excited for this trip he put a shotgun shell in the window for everyday until he got to go, he would take one down every day.  Kinda like the chocolate calendar before Christmas.  With my history of turkey hunting I made sure to tell him that hunting turkeys is nothing like the hunting shows that he had been watching.  On Friday, Cooper got to take his last shotgun shell out of the window and I met up with him and his dad around noon and we headed east hoping to find some turkeys the night before.  When we arrived at our place North of Spokane(don't tell anybody, that's my secret spot) we found lost of snow and only three turkeys on an opposite hillside.  I was hoping they were headed to a roost spot I had found a couple years ago.  After that we went to check out the other two spots I know of but with two to three feet of snow in these spots we decided it would be better to go to our first spot.  In the morning we got up and headed up the hill in the dark, we could hear a turkey gobble every two to three minutes, we had to hurry to get to them and set up our decoy.  We got there just in time to set up the decoy, I returned to the bush where I was going to do some fansy calling but I barely made it back to the bush and two hens flew over the top of us and then(remember its not like on T.V. LOL) the tom glides right in and lands behind my decoy thinking it was one of his hens.  Cooper waited patiently (unlike me on some of my turkey hunts) and let him have it with his 20 gauge Mossberg, he dumped him in his tracks next to the decoy.  I jumped up and ran out and grabbed the bird hootin and hollerin like I just won the Superbowl, I was as excited as he was.  We then took some pictures and Cooper got to find out how big turkeys really are when they are not cleaned, wrapped and setting on the self in the store.  As you can see in the picture the turkey is almost as big as him, not quite but it was fun watching him pack it out.  I hope everybody enjoyed this hunting story and make sure you all take a kid hunting some day, its fun, if not more fun than going yourself.  Good luck to everybody this Tuesday, maybe I'll see ya out there.

Isaac

[popeshawnpaul]

Ok, you've ruined this kid for life!  He's going to think that all he has to do is walk out in the woods, listen for the turkey to gobble, place the decoy out near the gobble, and run back to the bush because the gobbler will fly to your decoy before you even get a chance to get back to your hiding bush...     That's even easier than they get them on TV!

I have never had a turkey hunt that easy.  I remember in college hunting like 15 days in a row and finally connected on my first turkey.  Seriously, great job Cooper.  They won't all be that easy!

[boneaddict]

Are we mounting it 300?

[coastalghost]

That was an awesome story!  Turkey huntin' is such a rush.  Thanks for sharin' that.. Ive shot most of mine just how your experience played out...congrats.

[300wsm]

Yes, it was very easy for him and funny how when we were going for his second bird, everytime I set up the decoy he would wait expecting at any second a bird would appear.  He is ruined, but fun to see the excited he displays everytime we set the decoy up.

Cooper's dad found out how expensive hunting is without even knowing the taxidermy costs so I'm doing the fan and beard on a wall mount for him, hopefully he doesn't pull tail feathers out to take them to show and tell at school.