The long, drawn out spring we’ve experienced, including a cold and miserable Easter Sunday, has had a real effect on turkeys. With the regular season having kicked off Wednesday, I would like to have herd more gobbling action than I have.
There’s nothing like sitting on my porch with a cup of coffee waiting to hear the morning thunder of gobblers going off up and down the ridge. But this year, I haven’t heard nearly as many birds. Now, I’m real worried about how opening weekend is going to go. The turkeys need to get on schedule and break up their winter flocks.
“When turkeys are still flocked up as they are in much of the Midwest right now, it can make for some very challenging hunting,” a turkey biologist friend of mine, Jason Isabelle, said. “With warmer temperatures in the forecast, hunting conditions should be much more favorable for the upcoming regular spring turkey season.”
Youth Season is really special to me. It is an opportunity to put into practice some hard lessons I learned about hunting with kids, specifically my own. My oldest daughter, Bailee, killed her first turkey when she was 7. Now she’s 12. Inbetween, she backed off hunting. Two years, she didn’t want to go. I’m thankful she’s back at it. And now I’m aware I probably pushed too hard when she was too young. We have to let these kids come into it on their own. Our job is to give proper instruction and support, but the emotional aspects, the connection, must be their own. We can nurture the passion, but we can’t force it.
This year, if Bailee gets cold, we’ll leave. If she falls asleep, I’ll leave her alone. If, God forbid, she starts playing on her phone, I’ll try to grit my teeth and let her. When she’s rustling bags of potato chips, I’ll tell myself maybe the turkeys just think it is leaves scratching on the forest floor.
If she doesn’t kill a turkey, I’ll make sure she understands that is fine, because killing one isn’t what hunting is about. What matters to me, is she wants to go, and genuinely seems enthused about the weekend, but most of all, I just hope she has fun. I’ve learned a lot in the last few years through this process of hunting with my child, and I can tell you wholeheartedly, you are way more likely to build a hunter if you don’t push them too hard. Let them call some shots. Let them fail. They’ll learn, and you’ll have a hunting partner for life.
If you have a child in your life, consider taking them hunting this spring. The regular season runs through May 13.
See you down the trail …
Brandon Butler writes an outdoors column for The Republic. Send comments to [email protected].
