Hunter hunting along a marsh

Autumn and Matt DeFer

Information

  • Date Taken: 04/17/2021
  • Time Of Day: Midday
  • Method: Compound Bow
  • County: Ottawa County
  • Property: Private
  • Dressed Weight: 23.5 and 20.5

My 9 year old daughter and I hunted opening morning with no luck. We decided to go back out around noon hunting over a secluded foodplot, and within 5 minutes of getting situated in the blind a Tom appeared at the far end of the plot feeding. He slowly fed his way towards our decoy, finally giving my daughter a shot with the crossbow and she drilled it. He made it about 15 yards and died. Decided to give it a few minutes while we celebrated and settled down, and after 5-10 minutes I look out and saw two more Toms making a beeline for the dead Turkey. After a few minutes of pecking and kicking at the dead Turkey one of them noticed the decoy, popped into strut and headed right to it where I smoked it with my compound. Had my 5 year old daughter with us also, and between the 3 of us we managed to get it all on video. I couldn’t have imagined a better day of hunting with my kids!