PA Youth Spring Turkey Opener

**Erik Nilsson** · #1 05-06-2009, 03:24 PM

PA Youth Spring Turkey Opener

Date: 4/18/2009

Location: North West, PA

Sunrise: 6:36 a.m.

Weather: clear

Temperature: 37* rising to 70*

Wind: Calm

Equipment Used: Avery® Finisher Blind Bag, Avery® Double Slate Carrying Pouch, Zink Calls® Custom Built Power Hen Crystal Pot Call and Zink Calls® Josh Grossenbacher’s Signature Series Diaphragm Turkey Call.

Hunters: Mat Nilsson, Avery® Pro-Staffers David Rearick and Erik Nilsson.

Each year, the state of Pennsylvania has a dedicated youth day for spring turkey. This gives licensed youth hunters and mentored youths a day for an opportunity for a bearded spring turkey.

I had pre-scouted an area out and I was able to place several turkeys using within it. From my observations, I could see a couple of nice 2 year old birds, a handful of jakes and a few hens working a woodlot and open field cover.

Dave and I went up a couple of days before to clear out a spot where I thought it would give us the best opportunity to set up our hunt.
We met early in the morning, for it was a clear day and we did not want to wake the turkeys and have them spot us setting up our decoys and our blind.

About a half an hour before LST, we heard a gobbler right behind us. Unknowingly they had roosted closer to our spot today than before, but we had settled in with out being noticed. He called about every five minutes and we could hear the hens in the tree yelping softly and I answered back with a few soft yelps on my crystal Power Hen pot call. This gobbler was the only one that was active on the roost, unlike the few days before when all would sound off trying to out do each other. Since we didn't hear the other two, we decided it would be first come, first served since Mat has an extra tag this year. Closer to LST, a hen started moving from limb to limb eyeing up our spread with curiosity.

We could see the other birds as they started stretching out, getting ready for the fly down. Now into LST, we had the hen who was watching us, take off and pitch to our left about 20 yards, following her was the gobbler landing out in front of us and another Jake nearly clipped the top of our blind and pitched to the right of the decoys. Things happened so fast that we had to make sure the bird Mat was going to take was clear of the hen. He spotted our Jake decoy and immediately raced over stopping a few yards short of the decoy to check out the competition.

Dave worked with Mat on getting set up for the shot, while I was watching to see if we had any other birds approaching. Dave gave the all clear for the shot and I gave a quick single putt. The Jake stuck his head up and Mat fired dropping him right on the spot at 25 yards.

It was an awesome aerial show, certainly not what we expected, but sometimes things work out in your favor. Mat said he had a great time and was excited to get his second bird in a row. His bird weighed in at a touch over 16#'s with a 5 3/4 inch beard and 1/2" spurs.

Mat's Spring Gobbler

The Nilsson Team Hero