When I found out that I drew a Gould's tag for 2015 I immediately knew that I would not be using it but instead signing it over to my 13 year old daughter. She told me last year after taking her first turkey (a Merriam's) that she thought it would be cool to try and get a Royal Slam so I figured we might as well get going on it.
With her school and softball schedule we knew that she wouldn't have a lot of time to spend on the hunt but fortunately we know the area well and my father was able to do quite a bit of scouting to narrow it down for us. When I was able to spare a few minutes I sighted in the shotgun and patterned some good loads for her to use.
As I checked her out of school I couldn't believe the time was finally here to get headed south. After the long drive we met up with my dad and we quickly got camp set up and did some looking around. We put a couple gobblers to bed that night and were ready for opening morning. We had an absolute blast working the birds and getting in close multiple times but with the hens and or the cover we just couldn't get a good clear shot on any of the big toms. This continued on through the next day until we were able to put it together around 4 in the afternoon on Saturday. We got into a group of five hens and a big mature gobbler was trailing them up. After they moved off through the tall grass and into the creek bottom we circled around and got in front of them. As they moved through openings my dad and I were about to jump out of our skin waiting for Jaycie to take her shot. Just as I turned to her to find out what she was waiting for the gun went off and her Gould's hunt was over. After high fives and hugs I asked what took her so long and all she said was she didn't want to miss. Unfortunately I did not get the kill shot on video as I left everything where we were first set up but I did get some of the strutting and gobbling. Jaycie's Gould's has an 11" beard and 3/4" spurs on each side and should make a beautiful mount! We dropped it of with Sven yesterday to work his magic for us.
It was a great time spent with my dad and daughter with a lot of very vocal birds and beautiful weather. We now have a trip to Texas planned for 2016 to hopefully bag her Rio in her quest for the Slam.
A quick video I put together.