The year 2020 was crazy with stay-at-home orders, online school, and ample time to be outdoors for more than normal family time. The youth season in Iowa for turkey and deer is set before the regular season, allowing youth to have first crack at any animal before they smarten up during the regular seasons. Also, the resident youth tag is good for all seasons for deer and turkey, kind of like a Governor’s Tag.
Hunting has always been a great pastime in our lives, connecting us together. It is a wonderful opportunity to have some great alone time with Dad, a time we will always cherish. Lauren (age 13) and Gavin (age 11) have had the opportunity to harvest many animals since they each started hunting at age 8. However, this year was special. It was their best year yet!
The great hunting year started in mid-April with turkey season. The thing I have always appreciated about youth turkey hunting is that there is a lot of action for the kids.
With the turkeys calling/gobbling and seeing a show from a strutting, love hungry Tom, it’s always a good time. When spring comes around, there is always a fight between the kids about who gets to go first with Dad. We usually take turns, but since Lauren shot the big Tom last year, it was Gavin’s turn for opening weekend.
We hunt turkey on private land and have one heavily timbered ridge that has produced every year. It’s almost a given that we can walk to the top of the ridge, pop up a blind, and kill a turkey every year on the first weekend. This year, without a problem, we would walk Gavin up to the top of the ridge so he could get first crack at a Tom. This was not the case in 2020, though. Instead, we struggled. Birds weren’t responding, and Gavin struck out on opening weekend. We came home sad to Mom with the typical “it’s hunting, not killing” sob story, and Gavin was disappointed.
It was Lauren’s turn, and because we had the week off from school/work, we could keep trying. Wouldn’t you know it, “Lucky Lauren” walked up the ridge the first day she hunted, called in a bird, and tagged out. It just didn’t seem fair, but that was her luck. She has always had the best luck, and Gavin has always had to work for it. The good news for Gavin was that now we could focus solely on him. A few days later, he was able to harvest a nice Tom on the most beautiful spring day.
On to deer! Of course, Iowa is one of the coveted tags. Southern Iowa produces some of the biggest bucks in the country, but one of the secrets is the mid-September youth season. The ability to pattern a big buck eating soybeans or clover is an advantage a hunter doesn’t always get in October/November. Lucky Lauren was up for opening weekend, and the weather forecast said the temperatures were going to be cooler. It was a recipe for a good afternoon of deer movement. We were set up with a blind in a grass strip strategically between a green soybean field and a clover field. Just like clockwork, the deer movement started a couple hours before sunset. We were watching 10 different small bucks, but all were slightly out of range of her 20-gauge shotgun slug. After watching and waiting from behind the blind, with about five minutes of shooting light left, the big bucks started walking out of the timber. I told her, “Shoot one of those!” With about three minutes to go, Lucky Lauren had her big buck.
Now fast forward about 10 sits into the early muzzleloader season when Gavin finally found a deer to his liking. We have a great double tree stand that yields deer every night if the wind blows out of the south or southwest. This night, the wind was perfect and deer were moving. I saw movement along the edge of the cornfield and immediately helped Gavin get his gun up on the shooting rail. Simultaneously from behind us, another nice buck was coming, so Gavin had to sit very still. When the buck in the cornfield stopped in front of us at 15 yards, Gavin’s smokepole erupted and the buck snowplowed down the hill and piled up at the bottom. After a couple of high fives, it was picture time.
Our family truly loves adventures and being outdoors We have been blessed, and hopefully, we will always find this family connection in the outdoors forever.
Login