Turkey Tales

I'm finally getting around to telling our turkey tales and posting pictures! I killed my very first turkey last Saturday - the first day of the season! It was unbelievable! Jake and Olivia spent the night at JuJu's and they did great! Jake of course loves staying at JuJu's but it was Olivia's first time and she did really well. I was super proud of her and so grateful to my wonderful mother-in-law for taking such good care of my babies. I am BEYOND LUCKY to have such an awesome MIL. She's fantastic in every way. I love her to death.

Back to my hunting story... Mike and I got up at 5:30 that morning and headed for the woods. I should mention that the weeks leading up to turkey season have been both exciting and emotional for all of us, but especially for Mike. He and Daddy Don always went hunting together during turkey season and it was the favorite season for both of them. I love their turkey hunting stories the best. So because of this Mike was missing his Dad even more than usual. We knew from the get go it was going to be a tough season. Anyway, we get up and head for Munn Hill which is about a mile from our house. We were driving Daddy Don's truck. This is completely coincidental. We've only had it a week or so while JuJu uses Papaw's black truck to haul gumballs from her yard. It was definitely emotional driving to Munn Hill that morning in Daddy Don's truck. That was the beginning of what would become a VERY emotional day. So we get on a bird really early and head in his direction. There is nothing in the world like hearing a turkey gobble. Nothing. It sends chills up your spine. If you're not a hunter this means nothing to you, but if you are, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's an amazing feeling. So we get out into the woods off the highline and set up by a tree to wait for him to fly down. The goofy turkey flew down into the highline instead of to us, so after calling to him with the sweetest hen purr my husband could muster (he's incredibly good at calling turkeys - and all animals for that matter) the gobbler still wouldn't budge. At some point I realize that Mike's shotgun has a scope on it and mine doesn't. I always hunt with Mike's Benelli, but we borrowed one of Daddy Don's Benelli's so that we could both hunt with our favorite shotgun. I ask Mike about this and he reluctantly offers to trade with me. I said no, that it was fine - which is was of course. No big deal. After a moment it occurs to me what my husband had going on in his head. So I said to him, "you want me to kill the first bird of the season with Daddy Don's gun don't you?" He said yes. Holy cow. NO PRESSURE here people. I was already emotional and here I was with this new weight sitting on my shoulders to kill a turkey on opening day with DD's gun. Oh dear me.

We start slithering on our bellies towards the highline. We end up getting about 45 yards from the bird. I think this is too far. Mike is sitting next to me and we're not leaning up against a tree or anything. I'm up on my knees waiting for - heck I don't know what. The gobbler comes around a tree and all of a sudden he's just - THERE. He sees us. Mike says shoot. Shoot. Shoot. I froze. I was completely frozen. I thought he was too far. PRESSURE. He was already moving because he had seen us. His head was going back and forth. He started to run. Shoot!

I shot. I missed. The turkey flew away.

Mike stood up and he was irritated. That's actually putting it mildly. He was mad at me for not shooting the first time he said shoot. I had ruined it. I had this perfect turkey on this perfect day and I ruined it. I didn't kill the turkey. I ruined the idea Mike had in his head of this kill in memory of Daddy Don. In all actuality, I probably had this way too built up in my own head by this point. I am not an overly emotional person. I don't generally cry. I am proud of the fact that I'm not one of these girly girls who worries about their nails and how their hair looks. I'm just one of the guys. I was NOT myself that day. I started balling. Not crying - balling my eyes out. I couldn't fix this! I screwed up the entire "moment" and there was nothing I could do to fix it. Mike thought I had lost my mind. For those of you who know me in real life, this is completely out of character for me. I was SO upset. Mike told me it was ok and all of that nice stuff that he's required to say as my husband. I still felt terrible about the whole thing. I wanted to go home. Unfortunately this is not an option. You don't go hunting with a Munn and leave because things don't go just as you'd planned. JuJu would back me up on this point. No matter how irritated you may become with the Munn man in your life, you're still hunting and that takes priority over pretty much anything else. Mike wouldn't have taken me home even if I had REALLY wanted to (which I didn't.) So I blew my nose and we hiked on.

We try to get another bird a couple of hills away to come visit us, but he wasn't budging. We continued on and heard a bird in a cutover not far in front of us. We set out out a hen decoy and found a nice tree to sit against. Mike called and he gobbled. This went on for a few minutes but he wasn't moving closer. I suggested that we gobble at him. Mike gobbles and that's all that was needed. The next few minutes seemed like 15 seconds. It all happened SO quickly. I'm excited even typing about it. It was so amazing! So the turkey comes around the corner and Mike asks me if I was on him. I said I was. He said shoot. I shot. Down he went. Mike jumped up this time absolutely yelping. He was as excited as I have ever seen him! It was hysterical. We were like two little kids. It was one of the neatest moments of my life. The first thing I wanted to do was take it home to Jake. He was SO EXCITED to see my turkey. Jake is obsessed with turkey hunting (all hunting actually - I wonder why.) Olivia was excited too despite the look on her face in this picture.

So we hunted a bit longer after I killed my gobbler, but I was so anxious to get home to show Jake that Mike had to wait a couple of days to get a turkey for himself. He killed this one Monday morning. He then tagged out on a limb hanger he killed this past Saturday morning. I haven't downloaded those pictures yet though. He's rightfully proud of it with a 9 3/4" beard and 1" spurs. That's pretty good for an Arkansas bird.

I love that this is something we can do together. Mike and I love each other so much and it's really neat to be able to share his love of hunting with him. I'm glad that we can also share this with our children and pass on our love of hunting that we've inherited from both his side of the family and mine.

I sure hope I made Daddy Don proud.