By: Rodd Little.

Feeling Lucky and blessed after Connors Turkey hunt I decided to try and Take a turkey with my deceased uncle Bob’s Winchester model 1300 he won in the early 90s at a DU banquet.  Bob was my mothers younger brother, 9 years older than me and for three decades we hunted ducks, geese, turkeys and deer together.  I have spent a lot of time hunting with friends, family and many other people but the time I spent in the woods and fields with uncle Bob will forever have a special place in my heart.  I was involved in several successful turkey hunts with Bob using this gun. Bob took his first and only banded goose with this gun while hunting with my son Chris during the early goose season at Wigwam Bay in 2010.   A few years before he was diagnosed with dementia and died in October 2016.   A year before he died his wife Linda brought him to our house for a visit.  He gave me a framed painting of a flock of Canada geese landing in a corn field.  I also have his  goose calls and his first duck call and many others that I received from my first duck calling lessons, which hang from opposite corners on that print in my gun room. I look at it every time I enter that room. Due to job losses, me working off shifts and other family obligations starting in early 2000s we only got to hunt together a few times each year.  In 2012 he was diagnosed with dementia; he never hunted after that. With me working 2nd shift I would stop by his house before work to tell him some hunting stories, show him pictures and videos on my phone of my hunts, bring him McDonald’s vanilla shake and take him for rides out to Fish Point wildlife area near Unionville where we waterfowl hunted.  I would pull into the check station or hunting zones and ask him do you remember coming out here and hunting. He said yes every time. That lil’ road trip took  him back to McDonald’s for lunch then home. A month before he passed he was put into a nursing home.  My last visit I walked into the room with his vanilla shake. He was sitting in a wheelchair with his back to me. A doctor was talking him and then said to him, “look someone’s here to see you.  Do you know him?”   Uncle Bob responded, “Of course he is my turkey hunting mentor.”  This was the last time I talked to him. After he passed I asked his wife Linda and the funeral home director if I could do the eulogy at the funeral home the night of the memorial, It would consist of me telling some of our favorite hunts together along with calling a flock of ducks, geese and a turkey for uncle Bob for the final time…they both said yes. I arrived at the funeral home dressed in blue jeans, camouflage shirt, hat, hunting boots and waterfowl calls hanging around  my neck, a notebook with a eulogy that took 6 hours to write for a 20 minute talk. His son and grandson were going to talk, so I told them I would like to go last. When they finished I stepped up to the podium, heart racing and choking back tears.  I told several of our most memorable hunting stories, stood next to the open casket called a flock of ducks with the same call he gave my first duck calling lesson in the early 80s…a flock of geese and a turkey. There was not a dry eye among us. The funeral director even mentioned that was the coolest eulogy he had ever seen. A year later aunt  Linda called to let me know that Bob told her when I am gone make sure Rodney gets my hunting gear as neither of their kids or grandkids were into hunting or shooting.  I purchased everything he had, the Winchester 1300 along with his waterfowl calls and  a Quaker Boy mini boat paddle box call I gave him years ago. This hunt took place a couple miles from my house on a 30 acre alfalfa field, the north side is bordered by a small ditch and woods. The east side has a bigger ditch with a tree line between the alfalfa and a corn field the south a west side are bordered  by woods. The turkey roost just off the south west corner of this field fly down in the woods come out into the field work their way to the north east corner of the field where I would be sitting in the small ditch with the avian X strutting Jake and two hen decoys 20 yards in front of me. The weather was perfect with dead calm clear skies and cool temperatures.  .Just as the eastern sky was turning orange the turkeys roosted in the south west corner started gobbling. They gobbled plenty before flying down, allowing me to think about how much uncle Bob would have enjoyed this. I waited until I was sure the Tom’s were on the ground then I started yelping and cutting on Bob’s mini boat paddle box called.  The Toms gobbled right into my calling. It wasn’t long before I could see three Toms in the far corner of the field.  Once they spotted the decoys they came right to them unfortunately all three were Jakes.  All three were strutting around and pecking at the Jake decoy putting on a great show.  I used a mouth call a few times just to get them to gobble.  Suddenly off to the east on the other side of the ditch in the corn field a turkey gobbled. The Jakes start getting nervous then start walking back across the field in the direction they came, when they reached the middle of the field I noticed two blue heads come out of the ditch from the east and chase the Jakes all the way back to the woods on the west side of the field. Looking through my range finder I could easily see both were adults. I started yelping and cutting on a mouth call.  They spotted the decoys and they started heading my way and fast.  My heart was pounding, I was breathing heavily, realizing I needed to calm myself down before they got too close.  When they got to decoys I picked out the one that gave me the best shot, put the bead on his neck, said to myself this ones for uncle Bob.  I squeezed the trigger and dropped him in his tracks.  A really nice 3 year old with one inch spurs, ten inch beard and weighing a solid 20 pounds.  The Winchester 1300 did the job!  

With tears in my eyes I neatly laid the Tom out in the alfalfa, putting the 1300,  the mini boat paddle and shell next to it…then took a picture with my phone and sent it to aunt Linda with the message:  “This one is for uncle Bob he really would have enjoyed this hunt today with perfect weather and lots of action.”  She commented back, “I am sure he was watching.”