My son and I got out and hunted this past Saturday on APG. I got the area I wanted and we were down range early, arriving at my destination a few minutes after 5. We get out and are greeted by gobbling in our area, a few hundred yards away. I tell Dale we need to move fast, especially since he wanted to hunt from a blind. We get in the woods and the bird is a little over a hundred yards away. I pop up the blind and he puts out the decoys, 2 hens. We get situated and wait a few minutes for the woods to calm. I do a couple soft tree yelps and clucks, he responds. I go quiet for a few and here a couple clucks to our right. I do a few more clucks and such, he responds again. The next time he gobbles he is on the ground. I do a fly down sequence and he likes. I yelp and he gobbles good. He is getting close fast and double and triple gobbling. I am trying to get him into the spread before he gets cut off by the hen. My efforts are in vain, I hear a few clucks around 80 yards out and the gobbling stops. I yelp, nothing, I yelp and cutt, nothing. I am pretty sure that the hen is with him and I change my tact. I change to purrs and clucks and other soft talk. In about 10 minutes I hear the hen responding to my calls. I tell Dale to get ready because the hen is getting closer. I say if she comes in he is probably going to be on her 6. A few moments later here she comes right into the decoy spread. A few moments later here comes the Tom in full strutt, almost on a run. Dale says he sees him and starts to get on him. The bird sees him move the barrel out of the blind and raises his head and looks at the blind. I'm thinking perfect and I am just waiting for the boom. It comes and the turkey takes to wing. I am in shock and fire a round at him in flight. We both missed and he lands around 35 yards out. I drop the hammer again and hear a click, no boom. My gun didn't cycle another round into the chamber and my other shells stayed in the mag tube. Ahhhhhh. We wait a bit and go look for him. About 60 yards from the blind we find some blood. We start blood trailing him and I am hopeful we are going to find a turkey at the end of the trail. However, after about 60 yards the trial dies and we think he must of taken wing again and flew up into a tree. We looked more but couldn't find him. Bummer.

Anyone have ideas on how to train a son on handling hunting pressure/practicing to hunt under pressure? Just wondering.

Regards,
V

I don't know that it can be taught.. I know a lot of guys that just get too worked up when a bird is close and let a lot of turkeys get away because of it..

My only suggestion is to just remind him and whisper to him as the bird is coming and working in.. "Stay calm, relax, squeeze the trigger don't jerk it, breathe" etc etc..

Practice shooting. .22 etc as much as you can. Then give him situations to shoot. What Randy said is spot on the lifting of head and jerking trigger can happen to us all. Honestly if you dont get tore up when a bird is close its time to quit
Train him to squeeze the trigger keep head down and like Randy said whisper to him when he shoots even at targets. Have him say that to himself in his mind.

Vic, good story but sorry for the no recovery. It happens and is a tough pill to swallow.
As others stated good advice but after 60 years now I still hick-up at the wrong time. It is a life long learning and adrenaline experience.

Earl

Thanks for the advice. I get it. I guess the thing that upset me most was his response. It was the gun! You (me) don't take me out to practice! I got nervous when he saw me! And on it went. I explained to him that he needs to accept a miss as a miss then grow from that and figure out ways to keep it from happening again. I think he did understand and we did practice with his gun before we went out the last day. The blame game gets you no where and I think he will practice more so we don't have this happen again.
I can hope anyway.
V

Yes it definitely can be taught. It is what I call getting comfortable in the presence of turkeys. So many people get unnerved when the gobbler runs his head out just looking. If he's not putting then he probably didn't see anything. They stop and look all the time and then strut again. Do as others have suggested and talk him through the shot. Also get him out and around turkeys . This can be done during before or after this season. Go call up a gobbler or hens and practice sitting still and moving a camera or otherwise when the turkeys head is blocked. Experience is the best teacher. Good luck