I’m very lucky to have kids that love to hunt the Yard Bird. They will not hesitate to answer “Spring Turkey Hunting” when asked what their favorite type of hunting is. Guess old dad has rubbed off on them some.

Smiling Mallard Jr. had a Bi-District soccer game Friday evening that got delayed by the weather that moved through the area. With the late finish and post-game victory celebration at IHop delaying the 3 hour drive to the lease….well, we only got a couple of hours of sleep. I asked him several different times after the game if he wanted to sleep in and we’d drive down to hunt Saturday evening but he said….”I want to be there to hear the first gobble on the opener”. No argument here.

Even though the birds were henned up and tight lipped all weekend, we found a few birds that would play the game and work to the call so he was able to take a bird each morning. Good Times!

Now I have finally given in to BarneyWho’s rants and raving in regards to turkey rigs. I found a good deal on a Weatherby SA-Turkey 20 gauge that is light as a feather, has pistol grip, X-Full Turkey Choke and topped it with a Tru-Glo Red dot. Then I bit the bullet and bought some of those hi $$ heavy weight Federal shells in #7’s. I couldn’t bear burning $5 each time I pulled the trigger to sight the thing in so I only used two shells and the center of the pattern was about 3” low…that’s fine….aim at the noggin and the pattern is centered in the middle of the birds neck…perfect. Except I didn’t tell that to Junior. First bird on Saturday morning came strutting in to 18 yards and he put the dot on the wattles and torched one…hit the bird square in the chest pretty much destroying his beard and flipped him over onto his back doing the invisible bicycle ride in the air routine. After I let him in on the secret he took the second bird Sunday morning at 42 yards and stone cold slobber knocked him. I must say I was quite impressed with how those #7 HW loads and the 20 gauge performed. I can't wait to tee one up now

Now I had to post that last pic of him with his second ever bird when he was 9 and the bird he took Sunday morning. He was such a sweet little gobbler slayer back then and now he’s a 6’1” stinky azz man-child. My how time flies. Enjoy every minute of it!

Can’t wait to get back out!

CONGRATS to him (and dad)! Really cool that you added the two comparison pics

Greatness, congrats to them.

Great job and more memories

Congrats.

That Federal Heavyweight is one bad hombre.

Nice work Mallard.

Jr. can take you hunting when you are too feeble to
hunt alone in 5 or 6 years.

Good stuff. Glad someone finally listened to me.

That's the plan...



Hell Russ.....I'm glad I finally listened to you

I'm thinking about transitioning to a 20 gauge but I want to
shoot the TSS loads.

Can you help me out Russ?

Very Nice Mallard

I can. Do you have the shot? If not, it might be after season before you can get any. However, Hal aka hawglips is the only person I know you can buy it from. You want 9 shot, but if he has 9.5's get those.

Have you ever reloaded before? Hal will give you the recipe. It's just like following a cooking recipe. I use a 20ga single stage MEC to pre - crimp and final crimp my hulls, but some guys use a drill to roll crimp.

The next difficult part after the shot will be finding Hogdon Lil Gun powder.