Hunter: Jacob Eugster
Animal: Turkey
Location: Wisconsin
Weapon: Shotgun

My son Jacob (12) loves to hunt. This was the first turkey hunt that he could carry a weapon. Our first three trips to the woods gave us several exciting encounters but no shots were fired. Jacob and I had been seeing a really big gobbler right across the street from our house. Every evening at about six he and several jakes and hens would head to roost in this small five acre woodlot. The woodlot was long and narrow, with lots of good roost trees.

Our plan was to put a coyote decoy near one end in hopes that it would keep them closer to us. Then we put out a tom decoy that we trimmed into a Jake, standing over a hen. We also had another Jake and hen out too, all on the other side of us. We had made a little ground blind that my son Jacob, good friend John Sied and myself all waiting to ambush. Both John and I were running cameras.

The waiting game began. It wasn’t long and about twenty sand hill cranes took an interest in our coyote decoy. It was pretty entertaining to say the least. A while later John looks over to me and says that there is a big gobbler standing right next to the coyote decoy (I can’t see him from my angle). Soon we had about ten jakes surrounding the decoy. What a show. John starts gobbling with a hand shake call and after four gobbler call and four real gobbler answers in ten seconds, John struck a nerve on this old double bearded tom. John then roles over and films Jacob as the tom’s coming in. Jacob’s facial expressions tell it all. At twenty yards I give Jacob the “kill’em” and down goes the old tom. What a hunt, what a video.

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