A youth turkey hunt success story

“We were driving down a road on the way to where we were going to hunt, and saw a bunch of turkeys in a field,” Marshall Venske told me.

“So, I pulled into the nearest house that looked like it might be the owner of the property and asked permission to hunt,” his dad, Justin Venske said. “The owner of the land told us to go ahead and hunt the turkeys.”

“We had to work around to get in a good position to start our stalk,” Marshall continued. They planned to use a reaping decoy to work into position once they started the stalk. “Reaping” involves using a two dimensional turkey decoy with a fanned out tail, mimicking a strutting tom. The hunter belly crawls behind the decoy.

Justin gave a couple small yelps, and they started the stalk to a position that the tom could see them.

Justin managed the decoy, hiding behind it and Marshall hid behind him.

“The tom was strutting out in the field and his head was pretty red,” recounted Marshall. “As soon as he saw the decoy his head turned white and he started running towards us. The tom stopped almost on top of us and started strutting. He was about five yards away from us and I popped out from behind the decoys and shot him.” The bird died instantly from Marshall’s shot.

I asked him what he shot the turkey with. “A 20 gauge Franchi with Winchester Longbeard XR ammunition,” he told me. I got the idea that he highly recommends the ammunition. “It was pretty warm, like in the upper 70’s,” Marshall told me. He wore shorts and a t-shirt to deal with the heat on that last day of the Youth Turkey season. Marshall’s hunt involved more than a nice quick successful stalk and a five yard shot. If you have ever tried to get your sights on a turkey at five yards without getting busted, you understand. Add needing to slide out from behind the decoy, and when shooting from five yards the margin of error in one’s aim is zero – this was no chip shot; it involved a lot of skill. He worked the whole weekend for that bird.

“We worked four birds on Saturday but didn’t get a shot at any of them,” he told me. Marshall and his dad showed up early to an area of public land that they roosted a bird the evening prior. They set up well before shooting hours. A short while later they saw a headlamp from another youth hunter and his dad walking straight at them. A brief conversation about where they planned to hunt and the other hunter and his dad walked on.

“We heard a shot just after shooting light from where they said they were going,” said Marshall. “The tom we roosted walked in from the south but hung up about 70 yards away just strutting around. Eventually he saw us and he ran off. Another tom was walking to us from the east, and it saw us and walked off too.”

On the second set up, a third bird started working to them, but a doe walking by downwind caught their scent and started snorting. “She scared that bird away,” Marshall told me. They moved locations and chose a spot for a third set up of the morning. It didn’t take long to get another turkey responding and the action started.

“I heard something walking through the brush and thought a turkey was coming to us. It sounded pretty close,” said Marshall. “But it turned out the be a wolf. I saw it at 50 yards the first time but lost sight of it behind a bunch of brush. Then I saw it walking on a trail heading in my direction. It stopped about eight yards away, looked at me, and then trotted off going past dad.”

Justin walked up to him from the short distance away where he was doing the turkey calling for Marshall. He was pretty excited, Justin told me. He recalled Marshall asking him, “Did you see its teeth?”

I asked Marshall if he was a little nervous with the wolf that close.

“Yeah! I was!” he replied. “I didn’t want to shoot it but I was ready to protect myself if I needed to,” he told me. “It like paralyzes you when you first see it.”

Congratulations Marshall! I’m sure you’ll never forget this hunt.

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