Sarah’s Corner – Adrenaline Junkie

I’m an adrenaline junkie. Not like jumping out or airplanes or doing anything crazy but I like the adrenaline rush. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined turkey hunting to give me a huge adrenaline rush. Until I met Chancy Walters and Jeremy McCarty of the Turkey Reapers. The first video I saw of ‘reaping’ was a man in a Bigfoot costume crawling across the field with a couple huge toms all fanned out. Suddenly the toms were charging the man and he let them get unbelievably close before taking a shot. Now judging by the size of their beards, their spurs also had to be huge. And they would most likely have hurt had they jumped on him. Chancy and I visited and watched more videos and I decided, crazy as it was, I wanted to do that. But I also hadn’t shot anything besides coon so I wasn’t sure if I was ready. Fast forward 2 years and I decided I wanted to give turkey hunting a try. My dad graciously said he would take me and we spent the spring of 2013 in blinds trying to get a bird in range. I didn’t fill my tag but I learned a lot about calling and the birds in general. And I still wanted to reap even though my dad said he didn’t think it was a good idea because it’s dangerous. As fate would have it a friend of a friend wanted footage of reaping birds and agreed to take me out to ‘reap’ my first bird in film. I was hesitant as I don’t like to have my picture taken let alone be filmed. Spring 2014 I bought my 2nd season tag. Multiple tries lead to no tag being filled but I learned a lot. He convinced me to buy a 4th season tag and try again. Try after try was unsuccessful. It was now the 2nd to last day of the season. The early drive to our spot had me exhausted. But I had a feeling. We drove by the different areas he had permission on seeing if we could see a bird at all. Suddenly we spotted 4 toms. The birds were gone before I even got close. I was bummed. So we went to a different spot and saw 2 more toms. We parked the truck and ran across a tilled field. There was a little finger with a stream to help us with cover. He went ahead thru the brambles and hopped into the crick. I followed only to have the water up over my boots. He gobbled and we got a gobble in return. So he directed me to go on ahead so he could set up the camera. I used the Mojo scoot n shoot to cover me as I stepped out into the field. My 12 ga Remington 887 all locked and loaded. I got 15 feet out into the field and set up the decoy. The bird was 100 yards and facing away. He clicked a little and the gobbler stopped and looked back. Then he was mad. He turned and started toward me. His head was red with fury. I was given orders to let him get as close to me as possible before shooting. I raised my gun…I was too close to the decoy. He was at 50 yards. I inched back and held the gun up. Perfect. 25 yards and closing. My heart was pounding. What if I missed? Would he jump on me? 10 yards. I sucked in a deep breath. 5 yards. I pulled the trigger and he started flopping. I jumped up and high fived my friend. My shot was perfect. Watching the footage was unbelievable. He was a 28 pound bird with a 10 inch beard and an 1 1/4 and an 1 3/8ths spurs. And I was in awe of his natural beauty. I gave thanks to God as he provided an animal for me to harvest. This bird was my first turkey and to have reaped him was truly amazing.