It's early spring 2007 and the youth only turkey weekend is coming up fast.

Raley, my oldest daughter has just turned 11 years old and is very excited to go on her first turkey hunt. As the weekend nears we are getting ours plans together with our good friend Jim Rush and his son Briar. Jim and Briar have a cabin in Tompkinsville, Ky. They have invited us to join them for the youth turkey season and we gladly accepted.

It is early April and the weather can still be a little cool, but this year it is down right COLD!!! The temperatures were getting down in the teens at night. The cabin we were in had no electricity or running water. With a nice fire inside the cabin the first night everything seemed to be O.K.

We all woke up early and got prepared for our long day of turkey hunting. As Raley and got into the woods just at daylight we started to hear a few gobbles way off in the distance. We waited patiently for the action to happen near us. After a while, we decided to start moving and see what we could find. We hear our first gobble close enough to go on chase for the big Tom. We ease up to the edge of green field where we hear him again loud and clear, but he's not getting any closer. I decide to try to get a peek at him and crawl up to the edge of the hill where I can see the other end of the field. As I reach the top I can see the Tom and eight hens there with him. Now I know why he won't come to our call. We try to reposition several times hoping to get in his path, but we still come up empty.

That night in the cabin we had a little more excitement than we had planed for. Trying to be proactive and prepare for the cold night, we decided to stack our firewood for the stove inside so we could maintain a good fire throughout the night and so the kids wouldn't get to cold. As everyone lay asleep on the cots and me and Raley in the floor, I woke to check the fire and boy was there a fire. Our wood that we had stacked beside the stove was on fire. I yelled at Jim and we both went into panic mode trying to extinguish the fire before it got out of control. A couple of jugs of water and the fire was out. The cabin was filled with smoke and Raley and Briar was still sleeping away. That was a close one!

Needless to say we hunted very hard the next day and came up empty again. Our youth weekend turned out to be bust, but we had great time. Raley and I decided to go back to T-ville the next weekend for opening morning of spring gobbler. The first morning we go out and see some birds, we get close to some Toms on a couple of occasions but no luck. The day was winding down and hadn't bagged anything but that's o.k. there is still tomorrow. The next morning we awoke to see some disappointing weather outside. It was raining and about 33 degrees outside. This is not the type of weather you want to have a child in for hunting, so I ask Raley if she still wanted to go, she said she did. I talk to the guy we were hunting with and he suggested we go to the end of this cow pasture and set in their deer blind. With the weather so bad out I didn't want Raley to be in the rain, so we went to the blind. After about two hours Raley says "daddy I am starting to get cold" I told her we would leave anytime she wanted to go. She said, lets stay about ten more minutes and if we don't see anything we'll go in for a while to warm up. I told her that would be fine with me. After about ten minutes she decides its time to go and I agree. As we were putting ours vest on I looked out the window and seen two turkey walking across the field toward us. I told Raley to get ready, incase they were gobblers. As I called to the turkey they both turned and started straight for our decoys. I still didn't know if they were hens or jakes. As they closed the distance I seen that they were both jakes and headed right down Raley's gun barrel. Raley nervously set in the ready position waiting on the right time to take the Jake. As they neared to 20 yards I told her to take it! She squeezed the trigger and both birds flew straight up in the air, I new she had missed; they hit the ground and run about 10 yards from where she had shot at them. With my emotions running as high as hers I said,"SHOOT IT!!! SHOOT IT!!!" In an instant she squeezed off another round with a direct hit on the Jake. We both took off running at the bird with excitement. I was so proud of her for keeping her poise under pressure.

These hunts will never be forgotten by me or her for as long as we live. The time we spend in the woods together is a very special time for me and a great time for us to bond as a father and daughter and as a hunting team.