Part 1 of 2 - Thanks Dad! - Nebraska
Ken and his Turkey!
Hunter - Ken Snyder
Cameraman - Matt Snyder
It was the moment I had been awaiting for a long time. It was 11am at the airport in Omaha Nebraska and I was about to pick up the man who taught me my love and appreciation for the outdoors. I had been hunting Nebraska a week earlier with Ralph and Zendal when Zendal killed his bird on the last morning of our hunt right before we all had to be back to the office in Illinois. Ralph informed me that we still had time on our tags and gave me the opportunity to invite my Dad on a hunt with me.
After about a two hour drive, stopping for lunch, gas, and groceries it was getting close to 3pm. In Nebraska you can hunt turkeys in the evening but we decided not to rush things, and that it would be in our best interests to take our time getting unpacked and make sure all the equipment was tuned up and working correctly. After dinner we decided on a game plan for the following morning and went to sleep dreaming of great things to come.
The alarm clock went off and it was game time. I can honestly say I have never been so happy to hear an alarm clock go off at 4am in my life. This was the first time that I have ever got to actually take my dad hunting and get him an animal. Having hunted the property we were going to only a week earlier I knew what we were in for and couldn’t wait for my dad to experience it first hand. You can tell someone the spot you’re about to hunt is a roost on about a quarter mile stretch of riverbed where at any given time there are 30-100 birds in the same trees every night and have been for the last ten years, but until they actually see it it’s hard to comprehend. We got into the blind about half an hour before light and it didn’t take long for the longbeards on the roost to start talking! “There’s one over there, two over there, two more over there!” I think we ended up at nine gobblers that were talking on the roost before they all started to fly down. It took the birds a while to make their way across the field to where we were set up in our Ameristep Choice Blind, anticipating that we would get a shot within thirty yards. When they finally came past us there were thirteen with the closest one crossing in front of us at forty yards. No birds on the wall, but what an awesome morning.
After a lunch back at camp and a short afternoon nap, it was time to make a decision on where to hunt for the evening. Although we could have hunted the same birds from the morning returning to their roost in the evening, I decided we should go set up the blind on an alfalfa field that we had seen birds in before. Along with this being the first hunting trip that I have gotten to take my dad on, this was his first time ever hunting birds with a bow on the ground. We were in the blind and set up at 3pm. I had to laugh as I looked over and saw my dad nose deep into a book totally not paying attention almost as if he was expecting me to tell him when there was a bird coming. Almost as if he was the kid now and I was filling his shoes from when I was young and we hunted together. It felt great and right as I was getting caught up in the moment, I caught a glimpse of a birds head moving through the alfalfa field about eighty yards out and to our left. “Dad there’s birds, four longbeards!”
We had no decoys out due to the fact that only the jakes were paying attention to them and the toms weren’t leaving their hens if they were with them and weren’t interested in the decoys even if they weren’t with hens. We were relying of some soft calling and the somewhat natural movement of the birds. The four longbeards headed straight for us like soldiers in a single file line, they meant business and they were coming to what they heard. They made it to 35 yards before they must of saw the sun hit the camera lens due to the ground blind’s position and headed back they way they came from. Twenty minutes later it was like god hit a switch and there were birds everywhere! The four toms from before were on their way back in along with four jakes and a few hens. There were two other groups of birds in the field but these were the ones we were focused on, they eluded us once and it wasn’t going to happen again. The four jakes led the way and the toms followed right behind into 15 yards where dad released his arrow.
In a flurry of feathers and birds running everywhere it was all over, my dad had his first bird ever taken with his bow and I got it all on film. What an awesome feeling! We bonded there in that moment father to son, man to man, and I believe I truly felt the same feeling of accomplishment he did when I was thirteen and I shot my first archery whitetail buck with him by my side. We recovered the beautiful tom with a 10 inch beard and 5/8 inch spurs, packed up all the gear and headed back to camp for a celebration dinner. What a great start to a trip!