This story was written by Mike Nelson, Lone Star Outdoor News’ National Sales Manager, who lives and does much of his hunting in Oregon.
A year ago, my youngest brother, Scott, was already into year four of his battle with ALS when the pandemic hit the world. This awful disease finally took my brother’s life last September at the young age of 48, and he left behind a beautiful and loving family, his wife, Jillian, and two boys Jack, 15, and Henry,12. You can only imagine the harm this kind of tragedy does to a family.
My brother accomplished a lot in his short time with us. He had a wildly successful pizza business in Minnesota and was able to retire about 8 years ago and move to Oregon near me. This gave us the chance to participate in more activities together, including getting him into hunting and fishing.
The year before he got sick, we went on a turkey hunt together and I was able to call in a magnificent 11-inch bearded tom for him, which became his first and only turkey. That tom put on one of the best gobbling and strutting shows I’ve witnessed in my 18 years of hunting them.
This year my goal became doing that for Scott’s oldest son, Jack. I had promised my brother I would be there for his boys while they grew into young men. Jack expressed a strong interest in hunting last year, and hunted turkeys under the Oregon Mentored Youth Hunting program with me. He got a taste of the experience. We never got one close enough to shoot, but he experienced strutting and gobbling turkeys first hand, which whetted his appetite for more.
Last fall, Jack was finally able to harvest his first game animal when he shot his first goose and several ducks under the mentor program. This motivated him to finish hunter education so that he could hunt this year’s youth opener of turkey season. His Christmas stocking was full of turkey gear and he got his fill of turkey videos in anticipation of the hunt.
After a year of tremendous loss and sorrow, both of us were looking forward to the hunt. Knowing how hard this past year had been on my nephew, I desperately wanted to help him harvest his first turkey. Some of my industry friends were kind enough to provide us with some gear for the hunt. Federal sent turkey loads along with some hats and shirts. LaCrosse provided each of us with a pair of the AeroHead Sport boots featuring their AeroForm technology.
Our hunt took place in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon. This area has seen phenomenal growth in its turkey population during the past 10-20 years. The region now has a three-bird limit in the spring and one in the fall. It’s a pretty amazing story, considering there were no indigenous turkeys on the western side of the Rocky Mountains. I’ve been very fortunate that a welcoming family in the Blues has allowed me access to hunt on their property throughout the past several years.
On the day we arrived, the landowners said they had heard gobbling that morning from where we planned to hunt the next morning. I felt pretty confident, envisioning it would be the same show as the past three years. Turkeys would gobble like mad on the roost, fly down in front of us, strut a bit, and then come into our decoy spread. Then, Jack would shoot a big tom, we would celebrate, get home early enough to watch the Masters, and sleep in on Sunday.
Long story short, I didn’t watch any of the Masters and there was no sleeping in on Sunday. It turned out the birds had not been roosting on the property, and we didn’t see or hear a bird. We did hear a couple of distant gobbles on neighboring properties, but none of them wanted to play ball. Jack made a great observation that “the YouTube turkey hunting shows make it look so easy.” I truly believe we lose a lot of young hunters because their expectations are unrealistically high.
We decided to change tactics, and instead of waiting for them to change their tune and come onto the property, we packed up our gear and drove an hour to my main honey hole that I was hoping to save for the regular turkey season opener the following week. The rancher had seen several toms on the property recently, so we had high hopes. By the time we arrived, the winds were gusting to 30 mph, making it even tougher. We hunted most of the midday without hearing a gobble, and saw only one hen. The pressure was mounting and my nephew was getting a little frustrated.
We did find some sign that a few birds were roosting in their normal area, and we saw several birds on the lower part of the ranch when leaving the property that evening. So we felt really good about our chances on Sunday. My nephew was quickly learning that turkey hunting is about more than just harvesting the bird. You need to find areas to hunt, get permission, scout, make a plan, watch the weather, and make sure your calls and decoys are ready to go.
We had a delicious turkey burger meal that night, and before you knew it the alarm was going off at 3:45 a.m. Sunday morning. I was pleasantly surprised to see Jack up and ready to go. We got dressed, made coffee, packed the truck and departed with high expectations.
Once arrived and geared up, we walked toward the roosting area and blew on a crow call that immediately had two or three birds gobbling back at us. Things seemed to be getting better by the moment, but then the activity stopped for the next 30 minutes. We had put ourselves into position and had done some light yelping before flydown, but we were answered by silence. I knew they had flown down, and I was pretty sure their daily pattern would take them down closer to us on the lower part of the ranch. We decided to stay put, and it didn’t take long for my nephew to spot a turkey at about 100 yards, coming to our decoys.
The bird hung up at 80 yards, so I started some slight purring and yelping on my Strike-A-Strut pot call, and finally he gobbled. We figured it was a jake, but we had agreed the night before that Jack would take a jake if it presented itself. Before we knew it, two more jakes appeared behind him at about 100 yards. They seemed leery of my decoy spread, which consisted of a strutting tom in front of a hen.
The lead jake finally worked his way in, and Jack was able to shoulder his gun when the bird passed the only tree in front of us at 60 yards. The bird was still acting pretty cagey and hung up at 45 yards. We both sensed this was Jack’s chance, and I told him to take the shot when the bird’s head was up — and, man, did he ever take the shot. That turkey had no idea what hit him, going down like a ton of bricks.
After Jack shot, I reached over to pat his leg in congratulations. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind. Jack found harvesting a jake is just as exciting. This will easily go down as a Top 10 moment in my life, and we both know his father would have been very proud of him.
I dedicate this hunt to my brother and Jack’s dad, Scott Nelson. Rest in peace, bro!
