A First Time, Spring Turkey Hunt

My Grandfather, "Grandpa Jack," landed on the mainland of Japan during the final stage of the Second World War.

Originally he was there for the impending invasion, but as events occurred his job turned into more of a humanitarian role.

I never got to hear much about his time spent overseas, but occasionally, he would pull out a few pictures that he took of the area surrounding ground zero. I do however, distinctly remember him telling me about the kids he encountered there. He treated the local children as if they were his own.

"This wasn't their fault," he told me. At the time he was 19 years old.

Grandpa Jack liked his food cooked well, borderline burnt. I was told this was due to his time in the army, something about eating raw chicken. Subsequently I don't think he ate much chicken the rest of his life. He was part of what would become known as "The Greatest Generation." He was a worker. A farmer a 4th generation farmer who was the great grandson to homesteaders in North Dakota.

Fun fact: "North 40" in North 40 Outfitters refers to the Homestead Act of 1862. Learn more here

I sometimes wonder why more people didn't take advantage of the "free" land that was available, but then I think back to that era and what it took to homestead. These were tough times and even tougher people. Free land didn't come without hard work and sacrifice.

My dad was baby boomer; kid #4 out of 9 at their farm north of Kenmare, ND. He was also the runt of the litter. I'm sure that most of his sisters are taller than him. The trait he possesses most from Grandpa Jack, other than big ears and a German nose, is his work ethic. Grandpa Jack farmed into his 70's.

Parallel to that, my dad fixed cars for 40 years, but around 25 years into his auto body career he was pulled back to the rural life and bought a farm from a local friend, also a WWII vet and B17 Pilot. Dad left the Auto Body Shop at age 60 and is now farming full time working is in his blood. Luckily for him and Grandpa Jack, it's a labor of love.

Each generation has given something to the next. They have given us things like the family homestead, passion for the land, strong ethics and the knowledge to better ourselves. I'm the 6th generation since Steinberger Farms was homesteaded in North Dakota and probably the first generation in my family to have been given the luxury of time to pursue things beyond work at a young age.

It's without coincidence that I chose to pursue a passion so connected to the land. Maybe it chose me?

The past 10 years I've been trying to get my dad to relax a little and go on a spring turkey hunt. Usually my requests have been met with, "You just go and have fun," or, "Take someone who hasn't got to do it before." Heck, he's never done it before!

Finally, in 2012, I got him to buy a spring turkey tag. That was the year my mother decided to make a flag pole out of an auger worm. So, there we are at the farm, it's a perfect day to hunt turkeys and we are pouring cement and climbing the bucket on the front-end loader to erect her flag pole. Somehow we finished that dang project with about two hours of daylight left, just enough time to make a run to the hills.

With one camo sweatshirt between the two of us, one decoy and one mouth call we made a mad dash. It was early in the season and the turkeys were still in big bunches, but that wasn't going to stop us from trying.

Here's some tips and tricks to help you on your next turkey hunt.

After locating a group in a wheat field, I set dad up against fence post and I laid down in the grass near the decoy. There were 18 birds in the flock. Three big strutters, probably a couple jakes and a lot of hens. I wasn't feeling too optimistic about luring them a 1/3 of a mile with one decoy and one not-so-good caller. The first few yelps got them to gobble and look our way. After they caught site of the full strut decoy and heard a few more yelps they were quickly enroute, I couldn't believe it!

I looked over at my dad, leaned up against that fence post and saw myself when I was 12 years old on my first turkey hunt: wiggling around like a little kid in church! It didn't take the flock long to get to us and the show started. Gobbles, yelps and purrs it was full strut madness only 20 yards in front of us!

It was an amazing scene that would have went on for a while had Farmer Phil not gotten trigger happy. I was so engrossed in the moment that when his old Mossberg went off I nearly soiled myself! The turkeys had no idea as to what had just happened so I started some aggressive fighting purrs to make it seem like a fight was on. They all soon chimed in and started ganging up the dead gobbler that dad had just shot, what a site this was!

After taking one more bird we laughed about how perfect the day was and how we must be extraordinarily great turkey hunters to pull off a hunt like that. Farmer Phil made a few more bad jokes, standard with him, and chuckled about how he felt like he was on a hunting show for the Outdoor Channel.

And it all started with hard work.