The feeling of looking down the barrel of a shotgun and knowing that you only have one shot to take down your hunt was the feeling of a lifetime. I was ten and it was around it was Thanksgiving the first time went hunting. All of the guys decided to tag along my brother, Dad, Grandpa, and me. Of course I was shaking and tapping my feet I didn’t know what to expect for my first hunt. I assumed it was turkey, pheasant, or quail. All of us ended up going Turkey hunting one of my Grandpas friends owned land somewhere outside of Ottawa, Kansas. Going into this hunt there was lots of steps from how to track and getting a feel for the land.
We celebrated thanksgiving before going out on our hunt. Glancing over the long brown table that has scratches from the war of 1812, I became overwhelmed by the variety of food this year. There was everything from turkey to macaroni and cheese. My brother and I sat down with at least two plates full of every kind of food that was put out. We talked about crazy ideas we would do while hunting. Dane my brother wanted to run full speed and do a barrel roll while firing his gun at the target. Overhearing that my dad told us that we needed to stop talking and just eat so we could “get er done”. Knowing that we needed to hurry, I stuffed my face full of food and that ended my Thanksgiving feast.
I grabbed the rest of the hunting gear from my grandparent’s house and packed it into the Truck, The whole way there I was just telling my self inside don’t get nervous, just stay calm and listen to my grandpa and everything will work it self out. Taking into consideration that I was only ten at the time I didn’t know any better. Getting closer to our destination I started to clam down and took of my shirt because I was sweating so much because I was nervous. Arriving at my grandpas friends land I immediately jumped out the truck and took in a deep breathe of fresh country air and my mind was free of any negative thoughts such as getting killed.
Our hunting started with hearing my grandpa’s voice explaining about the difference between a male turkey and a female; I didn’t really listen because I was looking around at the beautiful rolling hills that were all around me. I learned how they way to make a turkey call, which I really enjoyed after learning it only involved a box that you move back and forth. After learning the calls we deployed our decoys which attract the turkey towards our location.
A quick forty five minutes went by of doing calls and waiting until anything even came our way. I heard a dense whisper of my grandpa’s voice from a distance “Get ready here them come boys”. I got into a zone where I really concentrated on getting a feel for the gun by adjusting it to my shoulder with a nice snug fit. Looking around I saw some turkey off into the distance and pointed them out to my brother and we got ready to take a shot as they came in closer. Once the turkey came into about twenty yards of us I looked down the long sleek black barrel of my twenty gauge shotgun and prepared to shoot. I squeezed the trigger slowly and the gun went off, it was a direct hit into the body of the turkey. I waited a couple minutes for the animal to die before going to collect my prize shot. My brother patted me on the back and said “hey bro nice job im really proud of you”, an overwhelming feeling came over me. From a mind set of nervous to feeling on top of the world knowing that only doing this one time I get a kill in my first shot was awesome. As, I was walking to go get my turkey I though to my self “ you know Jordan this is something that you need to start doing more with the family and you can pass it down to my family when I get older or is it?”.