Youth turkey season begins tomorrow at The Proving Grounds!  Traditionally, I take Raleigh (12 years old) before daylight until noon or a tagged turkey and Rae (9 years old) after lunch until dark or a tagged turkey.  My mission is purely to share creation with my daughters.  I always enjoy time in the woods with both my daughters.

The girls harvesting a tom is my secondary mission.  However, I want them and their equipment to be prepared should the opportunity to collect some turkey breast occur.  They shoot a 20 gauge pump shotgun that will be loaded with Winchester Game and Field loads with 7.5 shot.  I limit the range they shoot to about 20 yards.  This combination of yardage and shell selection has proven extremely effective.  It has resulted in turkey breast being added to the Woods’ freezer before.

However, we also have experienced a miss.  That’s easy to do when using a full choke.  It’s also easy to do as hunters (new and experienced) often raise their head from the gun’s stock to gain a better look at the gobbler!  I greatly reduced the chances of that happening this year by placing a Nikon TurkeyPro scope on my daughters’ shotgun.  The scope helps the girls (and me – I added one to my gun also!) make sure their aim is true.  Even without the shooter raising their head, it’s easy to assume the bead is on target when it actually is not.  The design of the reticle in the Nikon turkey scope eliminates those assumptions and also allows hunters to accurately estimate yardage to the target.

I actually enjoyed patterning the girls’ and my shotgun today as I knew exactly where I was aiming because of the turkey scope.  I doubt the gobblers at The Proving Grounds will be as excited as I am about this addition to our shotguns.  We’ll find out tomorrow.

Growing Deer (and turkeys) together,

Grant