Doubled-Up

It’s April 2022, and we are back at the peanut field for another turkey hunt. Turkey hunting was not always a yearly pursuit for me; truthfully, I didn’t have the drive to chase spring gobblers. I have always desired to pursue these animals but lacked the passion for getting after them. That all changed in 2018 after an opening weekend hunt with my father that did not go as planned, but it paid off. To read about that hunt, see the blog post “When Giving Up Pays Off.” That hunt sparked a real passion for chasing eastern gobblers in the spring.

For this hunt, we would use the same game plan as two years before when we got Kelsie her first gobbler. I had taken off work the Friday before opening morning and arrived at camp around 11 am. My father and mother arrived an hour later, driving in from Orlando. The plan was to go out later that afternoon to set up the blind and store the decoys so we could slip in quietly the following day with minimal setup. We made sure to secure down the blind after a lesson learned from last year when we arrived at our hunting spot only to discover the blind had been blown 400 yards across the field by the wind. We did not see any turkeys in the field when we set up that evening, but we were confident they would be there in the morning. 

We arrived at the spot about thirty minutes before daylight the following day and set up the decoys about twenty-five yards in front of us. I set the decoys up with the Killer B decoy in front of a jake and hen decoy facing the direction we expected the birds to approach. The plan was simple, set up the decoys at the top of the hill that cut between two draws so that the birds would hopefully come out in the lower areas, see the decoys, and travel up the hill to check them out. Hopefully, this plan would keep the birds focused on the decoys and not us in the blind.

After settling in the blind, we had about thirty to forty-five minutes to wait until I even thought about striking a call. I spent this time trying out the new night mode on my iPhone 13 Pro, which, if you haven’t tried this mode yet, you definitely should. It creates a long exposure shot allowing in as much ambient light to collect in the photo resulting in a picture that seems much brighter than what you see on your phone screen. About fifteen minutes before it was time to call, I put the phone down and started to tune in to the woods waking up around us.

iPhone picked up the stars we couldn't see.

I was fiddling with my H.S. Strut Dead Hooks glass call and scratching the surface when the first gobble broke the silence. Game time. I picked up my striker and fired out a yelp in response. Immediately the gobbler answered back. Now, as much as I love hearing a gobbler respond to my calls, I know that too much calling will make a gobbler lose interest. Now I would play hard to get and make him think that a hen was out in the field and staying put so that he would come to us. 

About ten minutes later, around 7:15 am, a hen popped out on the field to our left. I could still hear a gobbler in the distance, but he sounded like he was staying put. The hen had made it about halfway to when a gobbler sounded off in the woods behind her. I pulled up my binoculars to scan for a bird when a young jake stepped out in the field. He came out in a full strut and was hot on her tail. When he finally caught sight of the decoys, he let out a gobble and started to posture. The plan worked, but it wasn’t the bird I was looking to shoot. Even though he wasn’t the long beard I was after, he gave us some free calling. He let out another gobble, and another gobbler sounded off, probably a couple of hundred yards behind him.

Volume up! You can hear the second gobbler sounding off.

The hen kept moving out in front of us, probably fifty yards behind the decoys, and the jake followed her trail calling to her as they moved. The other gobbler also gobbled, getting closer to the field each time he sounded off. The hen and jake moved over the hill in front of us and out of sight. The unseen gobbler let out another gobble, but he stopped about fifty yards back in the woods. I picked up my call and made a couple of soft yelps to keep him interested. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally stepped out into the field; looking through my binoculars, I could see he was a long beard. It was crunch time, and my nerves were getting the best of me. I grabbed my Winchester SX-4 shotgun, and in a mixture of excitement and panic, I was about to stick the barrel out of the blind when my dad whispered to me to calm down and be patient.

Hen and jake coming in.

The gobbler strutted at the bottom of the draw, looking at the decoys but hesitant to move toward them. I regained my composure and grabbed my call; it was time to seal the deal. I made a couple of soft purrs, but the bird kept moving in circles at the bottom of the hill. I increased the pressure on my striker and let out a fighting purr to try and get him to close the distance, it worked, and he started making his way up the hill toward us. I dropped my call to the ground and picked my gun up again, as there was no doubt he would head towards us; I just had to not screw it up by getting caught. I eased the barrel out of the front of the blind, expecting him to come into the decoys when he hung up about forty yards from them. I could not get the angle to shoot where he stopped, so I pulled the barrel of the shotgun back in and then put it out the left window of the blind. As soon as I got the gun out the window, he started moving again toward the decoys. 

I thought I heard my dad tell me to wait for him to get to the decoys, but I was too focused on shooting this bird to tell. I placed the bead on his head, waiting for him to quit strutting not to mess up his fan when I shot. He was just about to walk to where I no longer had the angle to shoot without moving back to the front window when I pulled the trigger. BOOM!!! The pellets found their mark, and he hit the ground, flopping. Dad must have thought I would change my shooting position because he was not ready for the gun to go off. Excitement took over, and I started yelling hell yea and other choice words. I should have stayed quiet, knowing those other two birds couldn’t have been too far over the hill, but this was a five-year journey to this moment, and worrying about noise was not in my deck of cards. I quickly got out of the blind to go and collect the gobbler. Picking that bird up and hoisting him in the air was a special moment, but what happened next made this a hunt we will never forget.

My first gobbler!

I carried the bird back and laid him down behind the blind. It was only 8 am, and we knew there were still birds in the area, so we decided to continue to hunt for a couple more hours at least. We sat in silence for about fifteen to twenty minutes letting the woods settle down before I attempted to call again. I made a couple of locator yelps, trying to get an answer from a bird, but I heard silence. I waited about five minutes and then called again, but still no response from a bird. I put the call down and planned on waiting for another ten minutes before I called again. I was looking down at my phone, reading a text from a buddy congratulating me on my gobbler, when I felt my dad’s hand tapping me on the shoulder and telling me a bird was coming over the hill. I looked up to see a bird in full strut about seventy yards to our left standing at the crest of the hill. I slid my phone into my boot and picked up the call again. 

At first, we didn’t know if it was a hen or a gobbler, but he turned slightly, and we could see a trim beard sticking out as he broke into a full strut, looking right at the decoys. I made a couple of soft purrs on the call to try and coax him in, and he took the bait. He was heading right for the decoys like he was on a string. Dad put his shotgun out the front window of the blind to prepare for the shot and whispered to me, asking if he should shoot him or not. My response was quick, “hell yes, you should shoot him.” I heard the safety click off then the percussion of the shot rang in my ears. The gobbler toppled over, barely flopping as he hit the ground. I couldn’t believe it; we had just experienced our first father-son double-up on a turkey hunt. It was exactly an hour between both shots.

Dad with his gobbler.

Doubling up on any hunt with any hunting partner is a special moment, and sharing my first double-up with my old man tops the list. To see that blind from the outside must have been hilarious because we were freaking out on the inside. We shared high fives and hugs as we both tried to get out of the blind to go collect his bird. I was jumping up and down in celebration all the way to his bird. We grabbed both gobblers, placed them next to each other, and we each had a turn taking a photo with both our birds. I almost ran back to the truck to drive it to the blind and load up our gear and gobblers. We had one more photo to get, and we would need my mom’s help to get it.

Doubled-Up photo!

Back at camp, we both got out of the truck with smiles as mom walked onto the porch. I dropped the tailgate on the truck to reveal both birds to my mom. She was just as excited as we were, holding her hands to her face in disbelief. We set the birds side by side on the ground, and each took a kneel behind our birds while mom snapped a picture. That picture would later be put onto a custom turkey call and given to my father as a birthday present later that year. We cracked a couple of cold beers and started the cleaning process, carefully cutting the fan, beard, and legs off the birds to later be made into mounts by my long-time friend Geoff. He had also mounted Kelsie’s turkey from her turkey hunt in 2020.

Kelsie's mount is on the left and mine is on the right.

Many hunters have a piece of property that holds a special place in their hearts. For some, it’s a family-owned piece that has been in the past through generations; for me, it is a peanut field in Eastman, GA. This field has given us plenty of deer meat which has fed our families for many years, but more importantly, it has produced some great turkey hunts and given us memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives. We can only hope that the peanut field continues to produce great turkey and deer for years to come and when the sun crests the horizon and shines down on that piece of heaven that the first weekend in April, we will be there. With calls prepped, decoys out, guns loaded, eyes sharp, and minds focused, we will be there to chase another memory.

Written by: Ricky Stewart