April 28 - Kimberly Crabtree

Hunter: Kimberly Crabtree
Animal: Turkey
Location: Missouri
Weapon: Shotgun

Mo spring turkey season rolls on and so does the bad weather, rain, wind, and lots of low pressure weather patterns, and a general downturn in the turkey populations has made the spring hunting tough this season, but we are still at it and had another great hunt on April 28th with Chris's fiance Kimberly Crabtree. This would be Kim'sKims first turkey hunt, and Chris was fired up to take her hunting and hopefully get her first turkey for her.

We had spotted a group of gobblers the day before (Monday) about 11 am, we had set out the early morning hunt due to rain, the gobblers and hens were across a creek bottom and feeding in a cut bean field, we made the decision to wait for the next morning to be set up on the field before first light. The next morning we were in the area very early and we heard 2 gobblers just to the north of our position, and we felt really good that they would come to the bean field to strut and feed since they were there the day before.

Chris set up the King Strut and Shady Lady decoys in the field, and we made our setup along an old grown up fence line, it was a great setup, after a short while we could tell the turkeys were on the ground and we called to the gobblers, they gobbled hard at our calls, and in no time at all I spotted the first one enter the field to the east, what a beautiful sight watching those 2 big long beards come running across the field to the decoys.

After the gobbler put on a show posturing to the decoys, Kim made a great shot on the old stutter and had her first ever gobbler. Her bird turned out to be a double bearded 3 year old ! Chris and I were so happy for her, the footage is really cool, and it was awesome to see another first time turkey hunter take her first gobbler. Good luck to everyone this spring!

Jeff