Illinois is a bit rough on a turkey hunter. It's a lottery for even getting a tag, and if you draw one, you only get one week to hunt, and only until 1pm each day. (As opposed to Kansas where you get about two months) Derek took that week of hunting very seriously, getting up practically in the middle of the night to head out to the woods before the turkeys come down from their roosts. Sadly, it rained on him quite a few of his days to hunt. He also did a lot of returning empty handed.
He bow hunts on public land and put his name in the lottery for a chance at any of the five weeks available.
This year he had a chance to hunt with a shotgun on a friend's land, so he put his name in 'the hat' for that county for any week also. Wouldn't ya know, he drew tags for the SAME WEEK in both counties. So he had to split the time between the two, even though he was hoping he'd have a whole week on each land separately.
A couple days before the end of his 'season' he got this big guy with a shotgun!
He brought him home to introduce him to the family. :)
They boys, who had been rollerblading when he arrived, were as excited as daddy about it!
He was almost as big as Miles.
I'll spare you the photos of our 'science class' where Derek let the boys explore the stomach contents.
Things learned: What they saw wasn't actually it's stomach. What they looked at was the turkey's crop, then the gizzard. The crop is where the food is initially stored and it moves down into the gizzard, which is full of rock to help grind it up. And now you know. :)
We're thrilled to have some turkey meat in the freezer and I'm proud of Derek for bringing home a bird! :)
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