Sorry fellas....I know a couple have even started threads asking about the turkey season Cade and I had.....I even responded that I thought I'd get one started during the auction.....but......

We have been terribly busy with baseball and life....so little by little I have been getting pix ready....so I think I can get it started and add the progression of the season as it happened.

I would like to say that for the first time I took more video than pix. I tried to take video of about every hunt. Some really cool stuff captured too.  Some great hen talk, great gobbling mornings, gobblers walking by before the season, some passed up birds...But my problem is that they are all clips of various lengths and I don't know how to edit them. I really would like to get them all together  as one sometime....but don't have the means. I suppose I could just add some clips to Youtube and add a link....we'll see....

 The Pre-season...  


As usual, this season started long before the opener, scouting every single morning....some of these pix you've seen before....

First pix are an early flock that had 3 bearded hens among the other hens, gobblers and jakes...
•          
•          
•          
•          

Another area...
•          
•          

a couple more random pix from early scouting....
•  
•  
•  
•  


Of course this season would be more about getting Cade ready for his first spring season than anything else. We started early and often with his preparation. Hows that for his 1st shot at our new turkey cut-out...
•  

A boy and his dog...
•  

Some days we shot out of the blind...
•  
•  

Well, it's about dang time!!   :D

QuoteOriginally posted by Charlie Lamb:
Well, it's about dang time!!    :D  

Such a slacker I am!!!

•  

This day we practiced in the company of some decoys to make it a bit more realistic...
•  

And another day.....her you can see the hole growing in the target right in the 'sweet spot"...
•  
•  

Scouting another spot that was loaded! 4 jakes...
•  
•  

Then a close-up hen...
•  

Looks like good times for sure.

Then the gobblers that had been gobbling like crazy since daybreak showed up...
•  
•  
•  

There were actually 2 more that I didn't get pix of....great morning scout!

Yet another scouting morning...
•  
•  

Another day, another spot...a rainy morning that had the birds loaded up in this field...
•  

Of course there were some beautiful sunrises...
•  

Just a pic I found interesting...can you tell what's in the pic?
•  

Great to see this one come up Curt  

Cool pics! Can't wait to see the rest!

Been waiting on this one. Tighten up!!RC

Yep, I almost forgot about it!!      

Hey this is what ive been waiting for!

Thanx to CJ at Montana Decoys, I was getting the chance to try out a new Strutting Decoy (Papa Strut) that they had developed.  He sent them to me and said have at it....

After talking to him on the phone I was excited to have the option of a full strutter that packed up small and weighed next to nothing.

He had mentioned how he bent the tail wire to transform the deke into a jake....I also removed the long beard and added a lightweight yarn jake beard.

Here it is next to "Floyd", my tried and true Primos B-Mobile...  
•  

Papa Strut was lookin' good...
•  
•  

We continued to practice daily...
•  

As you can see, Papa Strut has a good silhouette and looks realistic enough to fool gobblers....we were excited to use it...
•  

A perfect shot...
•  

On this evening we practiced back shots...
•  

I wanted to raise the head a bit  and get the front to fill out a bit to stick the beard out, so I tied a string from the base of the beard to the base of the neck...then ran a tight string from the top of the head, to the back of the body piece.  I liked what I saw...
•  

By the way, Papa Strut is a 2 piece decoy(tail/body). Check out Montana Decoys....they are Trad Gang sponsors...

The scouting continued every day...
•  

Oh yeah....as you can see in some pix....we were also practicing head shots...

I continued to scout hard, and compile some cool video. We practiced every day and I had no doubt Cade would be up to the task if given an opportunity.

The big day was approaching....

A nice summertime treat.    

This is getting good.
Jack