My Dad and I just recently completed our annual spring turkey hunt in Wisconsin.  It is always a very memorable occasion and a special time between father and son.  Dad owns a small rural newspaper in North Dakota called the Herald-Press and wrote this weeks editorial about our hunt together.  He did such a good job explaining it that I thought I would just reprint it here.  Thanks, Dad for a great time and an experience I’ll never forger!

Two Left Behind

Every once in a while everything just comes together.  What do they say about luck?  When preparation and opportunity converge. 

For most of us, the preparation far exceeds the opportunity.  We plan and prepare and plot and ponder.  It’s usually worth the effort, but usually something goes wrong.  We didn’t foresee something, or we assumed something that didn’t happen, or someone just screwed up, or the necessary opportunity, you may read “luck,” just didn’t pan out.

You may have guessed that I recently had an experience in which everything clicked just right.  It really wasn’t a huge deal.  None of you will be sinfully jealous after reading this.  But it will resonate with some of you.  Eat you hearts out.

So, there we were, last Saturday.  Son John and I sat in what’s called a ground blind.  That’s like a tent with viewing/shooting windows on all four sides. We were hunting turkeys in the corner of a clover field near John’s home near Wausau, Wisconsin.  We had been there since 4:20 a.m., waiting for legal shooting time at 5 a.m.  It was cold and it was windy.

It was a familiar setting.  We had been hunting that spot for four years, and we had shot a couple mature males (called gobblers or Toms).  The day before we had seen turkeys there.  Hens, which can’t be shot, spent long periods of time picking and pecking within a few feet or our blind.  For some reason, turkeys, which are exceptionally wily, don’t see a tent as something spooky.

A couple more hens visited us that morning.  Interesting and fun to watch, but not what we were there for.  Two guys in a turkey blind have a lot of time to talk.  Sometimes it’s silly talk.  Like when John, in conspiratorial tones, laid out a plan.  This would be analogous to two golfers planning in advance how they would celebrate a hole in one.  “If two Toms come in close enough to shoot, and we both have the opportunity, I’ll count, ‘One, two, three, bang’,” John schemed.  “Don’t shoot on three, but on bang’,” We laughed.  Great plan, but get real.  But we did shift our seats a bit so we wouldn’t interfere with each other just in case.

We continued to sit there and shiver.  The coffee I had brought along had turned cold an hour before.  Then….a turkey appeared about 150 yards away in the far corner of the field.  I checked with my binoculars.  It was not a Tom.  “There’s another one,” John whispered, “And more.”

Indeed, there were more.  A dozen, maybe more.  Apparently they saw our decoys and began to march straight at us.  No hunting or pecking.  They were on a mission.

I could make out at least three nice Toms bringing up the rear.  There were several immature males (called Jakes) in the flock.  I wasn’t counting.

The tension mounted (I’ll pause here while you take a couple deep breaths.)  as this gang of big birds advanced. The first to arrive at our decoys, 20 yards away, were all hens or Jakes.  The ones we wanted were about 30 yards behind.  (Excuse me.  I have to take a couple deep breaths and a sip of bourbon.)  The birds in front were acting suspicious.  There was something unnatural about those three rubber, immobile turkey-like forms standing by our invisible tent blind.  Would the Toms sense something was wrong before they came in range?  (Pause again.  I’m getting over-heated.)

Wondrously, the two biggest Toms, the ones we had agreed we wanted to shoot, separated themselves from the others, but kept on coming.  John had a good look out one window.  I had a clear shot from another.

The stopped exactly 30 yards away.  I paced it off later.  I said, “Now’s the time.  They’re getting nervous.”  I was getting nervous, too.

“One, two, three,”  b-bang.  The two shotguns roared in almost perfect symmetry.  It was turkey chaos.  They were flying.  They were running.  I’m pretty sure that if my ears had been functioning I could report they were hollering.  In a heartbeat they all were gone…..except the chosen two.

Then chaos broke out in the blind.  Hi fives, hooting and hollering.  I don’t think we kissed.  Then all was silent again.

With some reverence we approached the two left behind.  As turkeys go, they were average.  That’s still pretty big.  And they were beautiful – except for their heards, which could use quite a few more feathers.  We stroked them and smoothed their ruffled plumage.  I don’t thin we kissed them – heck, I’m positive I didn’t kiss mine.  John sometimes kisses fish, so who knows where he draws the line.

We did talk about what had just transpired.  The unlikely thing we had planned for had actually happened.  They had come. They had been in the right position.  We had waited until the moment was right.  We had shot on “Bang.”  We had shot well.

Nothing had gone wrong. Opportunity had come and we had been prepared for exactly what happened.  A father-son double.  What could be better?

It doesn’t work out that way very often.  God is good.