My First Turkey Hunt

Chad and I had a rare opportunity to have a weekend away and, of course, we went hunting! The truth is, I wanted to attend a wedding in San Antonio and the only way I could get Chad to go with me was to offer a hunting trip along side it.  It was the opening weekend of turkey season and the deer lease in Mason is only an hour and a half from San Antonio – perfect!  

It was one of the most amazing weekends! The bluebonnets were in perfect bloom.  It was a surreal scene sitting on top of the hill with my husband watching the sun rise over the hill country, the fields coming to life, and the wildflowers waking with the morning light.   Chad and I travel many weekends so we aren’t consistently in church, but your soul is filled when you engulf yourself in His Creation and experience Him bringing to life another day.

This was my first turkey hunt.  It is definitely different than deer hunting.  I love walking around calling, listening, hunting!  Deer hunting in Texas and Oklahoma is centered around food sources – deer feeders and food plots.  You work to pick the right spot, you sit, and you wait. With turkey hunting you are constantly on the move, calling to the gobblers, listening for their response, and good, old-fashion huntin’ down those birds!  Not to mention the weather is warmer and the scenery is blossoming. 

I decided to try my hand at filming Chad on this hunt.  Chad and I have laughed for days at our unprofessional video skills and our want-to-be commentary.  There is definitely a skill to be learned in filming a hunt.  The number one lesson I learned is you don’t talk behind the camera. For some reason I always felt like I had to be talking and explaining – “this is Chad calling a turkey,” “here is the cabin and the outhouse,” “this is where I sleep,” etc.  It is worse than home videos.  At least home videos have cute kids in their underwear playing fake guitars and air drums! 

The second lesson I learned is that you cannot guess an animal.  You have to be prepared for the animal to come in any direction and at any time.  Chad was working a turkey and that bird was coming to us fast.  It was an adult version of hide and seek!  We had been trailing this bird for some time, and he finally started coming our direction.  We set up the decoy and hurried to hide in the brush knowing the bird was coming up this cleared trail way.  Only, that isn’t the way he came.  Instead he turned and started coming toward us with a large mesquite tree in the way of my view.  It took a lot of patience and a lot of calling to get that bird past the mesquite tree and in view of the camera.  I felt like Michael Waddell’s cameraman when Michael is yelling at him because he can’t get the video shot in an episode of Bone Collector.  If you’ve seen that episode, you know what I’m talking about.

The third lesson I learned is that you have to have a tripod.  If you ever have the privilege of watching our video, you better have a barf bag.  The shaking of the camera will give you motion sickness.  It reminds me of the Blair Witch Project which had people throwing up in the movie theater.  There is something to be said for having the right equipment. 

The fourth thing I learned is that I do not like editing videos!!!!!  I can’t put enough exclamation points at the end of the sentence.  Again, if I had the right equipment and the right programs, this task may be a little easier. However, I was using Microsoft Movie Maker and I spent hours cutting, splicing, story booking, and adding audio to finally get to the end and not be able to save the stupid thing.  I will try to find a different program to use, but it is going to take me a while to get over that experience and sit down to edit a video again! 

Well, I can’t wait to go turkey hunting again.  Turkey season doesn’t start in Oklahoma for a couple more weeks, and hopefully I’ll have a chance to go again.  One of these days maybe we will have the funds to invest in good video equipment, but for now, I will practice with my hand-held home video camera and share precious memories with my husband and kids laughing at our unprofessional, want-to-be hunting videos. 

Turkey Trot for the Ages

Well... I went on my first turkey hunt!  It was a blast!  I was filmin' and Chad was shootin'!  This was also my first time filming a hunt.  It is going to take some practice!  There is so much more to consider when you carry along a camera.  We just have a little hand held home video camera. The quality isn't great, and you probably get sick watching it as the picture bumps around.  You can barely hear what we are saying and barely see what we are doing. Chad and I have laughed for days about our unprofessional, wanna-be video skills!  Then once we got home and I started trying to edit the video... all hell broke loose!  To say the least, editing that video put me in a bad mood!  Not only that, but once I finished, I couldn't save the stupid thing!  I am an engineer, but I cannot manipulate all this media mess! 

Probably the best part of the trip was getting to talk to my grandfather about the history of the deer lease and how our family has played a part in the development of the land and deer population.  I will get that part of the video edited and loaded on here if it kills me!  My grandfather is one of the men in my life that I have the utmost respect for.  I have gone through my life making many difficult decisions, and I have turned to my grandfather to help me in those decisions so many times.  He is beyond wise, and I put so much value in his opinion.  He has lived his life putting his family first and foremost, and part of who I am today is because of him. He was able to kill a turkey this past weekend at the deer lease, and he couldn't of been more excited.  It gets harder and harder for my grandfather to get down to the deer lease, and it takes the help of our entire family, but to see his excitement and thrill in the hunt makes it all worth it. My uncle, Bo, couldn't of put it any better!  Here is the weekend in Bo's words...

So the thrill of the hunt has been around our family for lots of years. In the off season my dad would take me to Gibson's Department Store and we would go to the sporting goods department and just "look" at all the new stuff and talk shop with Tommy, the sporting goods manager. That's back when the folks working in the sporting goods department really knew something about hunting and fishing. Since they talked with lots of sportsmen all day long, you just might find out what color worm the bass were biting or what jig was working best for crappie and even what depth to set your slip cork and how to rig it. You may even find which fields the geese were coming into and could volunteer to help the farmer to keep those darned old geese from trampling his wheat crop and even get his phone number. We would check out the new lures or decoys or calls. It was the beginning of the hunting gear explosion and we were primed for the latest gadget.

Well fast forward about forty years and not much has changed. We are still hunting the same ranch in Mason County and all the old guys that started the lease are gone and now my dad is the only one of the "young group" of hunters left and he is 83 years old this year. Now in the eyes of my sons and niece's and nephew's I am becoming one of the older hunters. Hard to believe while reflecting back on the day my dad asked the staunch old German landowner if he could bring his boy down to hunt. I about cried when Ruben didn't say yes. We got back in the truck and I said "Oh dad... he's not going to let me hunt." and Dad gently said "I have known that old German for lots of years and yes, he didn't say yes, but he didn't say no." About a month later we got a letter from Ruben that said to bring the boy down to hunt. Our family has had lots of great hunts and memories in that old deer cabin. Now my boys can't wait to go and they each have their special things they love to do. The little one just loves to go down to the "Indian Place" and look for arrowheads and dream about how it must have been hundreds of years ago. The twelve year old just wants to drive the camp vehicle, an old Isuzu Trooper that I let him drive on the ranch roads at times. My wife said I would never get to drive my Trooper again. She is right, but that's OK. I think I am going to kind of like being delivered to my deer stand.

My dad hasn't changed much either. He just couldn't wait to show me his new deer feeder. The latest and greatest model that you can load from the ground and it sounds like a helicopter taking off when it throws out the corn from the side. Still a sucker for the latest contraption and no, he didn't buy it at the Sporting Goods store, he found this one on the Internet of all places. Not to be outdone by these young engineers, he designed his own automatic turkey watering gizmo. Pretty slick too. I bet he told me half a dozen times how excited he was about the opening weekend of turkey season. Well we just got back home from the hunt and sure enough, he didn't sleep well, he was so excited about the hunt. When I tucked my boys into the bunk beds they too were so excited they kept the whole camp awake with their excited jabber. Kind of fun to have three generations in the cabin and not sure which one is the most excited about hunting. Well the old man doesn't see as good as he used to and he can't quite hear those really distant gobbles anymore, but guess who brought in the first big ol' gobbler. I remember my dad telling some of the old hunters that he didn't care if he got a buck or not, he just wanted his boys to get one. So now it has come full circle. I didn't care if I got a turkey or not but I wanted the boys to get one and I couldn't have been more excited to see my dad and brother drive up with my dad's gobbler in the back of the truck. 

Yes... at age 83 he is still excited about the hunt.