Tale of the Hunt

by his father, Dominick Mioni

This story is about my son's first spring gobbler that he harvested in New York. We live on the western border of the state of Pennsylvania. This was his first spring season and after a couple of near misses in PA and Ohio, he harvested his first bird in NY. We have the privilege to hunt a relative's farm in upstate NY that has provided some great turkey hunting for us over the last several years.

This particular hunt almost didn't happen because of some other obligations but we scrambled a little and were able to work things out. Luckily for Dan and I, the weekend provided 3 longbeards for us. He tagged out with two nice birds and nice guy that he is, he even let me get one. It certainly was a magical weekend.

We went in early to the upper pasture and set up about 200 to 250 yards from the gas line that the birds roost on. We had patterned the birds and were fairly confident that they would head our way. We actually set up an Ameristep Outhouse blind right on the edge of the barbed wire fence. Dan was set up on the left side because that is where I thought the birds would go and because my Mossberg 935 kicks the shells out the right side.

It was a clear but pretty cool morning and the birds began gobbling on roost right on cue at about 5:40. We could hear multiple gobblers. Dan got pretty excited when the birds began to light up. He actually decided to flip his chair around so that he could use the back to keep his gun up and steady it if necessary. About 6:00, we could see some birds flying down into the pasture and could distinctly hear the fly down cackles. I noticed movement along the middle tier hedgerow to our left and saw a coyote heading out into the pasture. Unfortunately, the coyote was directly in line with where we hoped the birds would come. I told Dan that the yote might bust up our hunt.

I called lightly, more to try to draw the coyote than birds. Actually it might have helped from two perspectives. The coyote filtered away and we noticed the flock above the lone maple tree in the middle of the pasture. Sure enough, they steadily came our way. It was one gobbler and about 10 hens. Slowly but surely they kept coming and angling towards Dan side. By now, he had his gun up and ready and I noticed that his breathing was getting heavy! Naturally, the hens were in the lead and when they got about 15 to 20 yards away, they stopped on the pasture edge and began to putt lightly.

The gobbler checked up at about 55 to 60 yards out and stood at full alert. I thought we were busted but we sat tight. Dan then whispered to me that he couldn't hold his gun up any longer. I whispered back to hang tough. The gobbler then belted out a gobble right at us! What a show! Thankfully, he started to step toward us and I asked Dan if he was on him. He said yes and I told him not to shoot high and to take the shot. He fired almost immediately and the bird folded!

He clicked the gun on safe, reloaded, and jumped right out the blind window! I yelled for him to boot it. I will never forget watching him scramble to get a boot on the gobblers neck and then seeing his face thru his face mask as he looked back at me and pumped his fist! When I walked on out to him, he jumped right into my arms for a big congratulatory hug. Honestly, I might have been more excited than him. It was his very first spring gobbler and one that we will always remember.