Local kids participate in youth turkey hunt

Saturday morning 27 area youngsters hit the woods as part of the 9th District League of Kentucky Sportsmen’s annual Youth Turkey Challenge, and of those all 27 were successful in gaining knowledge and skill in the outdoors.

The youth turkey hunt is part of the Kentucky Hunter’s Education Association’s No Child Left Indoors agenda.  What is the agenda of the program you probably wonder?

"The idea behind the program is to get children to turn off the Nintendo and go outside where they’ll get exercise and learn things about the world we live in," said Skip Walden, 9th District League of Kentucky Sportsmen State Board Director. "There is a lot of knowledge that is currently being lost on the generation coming up. Unlike a couple generations ago many youth today don’t know how to fish, hunt, identify plants, know how to navigate through the woods, or understand wildlife and what they need for survival."

This year’s hunt grew 50 percent in participation from last year’s hunt pointed out Bill Dowd one of the organizers of the hunts held each spring during the youth turkey season. Of the 27 youths that participated seven of them were successful in taking a bird. To the casual observer that percentage may not seem high, however Dowd noted that the kids on this hunt are between seven and 15-years-old. Many of them are hunting for the first time ever. Turkey hunting is one of the more difficult types of hunting. While turkey do not have the ability to smell like most game, their eyes are very good. They can detect the slightest twitch a hunter might make. These youth are learning to hunt and aren’t the typical experience hunters who’ve had years of learning through trial and error.

The youth were paired off into teams of two for the purpose of calculating a team score. The teams do not necessarily hunt together. In fact, it’s more common for members from different teams to be hunting together and most of the brother/sister/cousin teams get drawn with different partners.  League volunteers from several area sportsmans’ clubs work to man the weigh-in booth Saturday at the Cumberland Valley Sports League. As the youth bring their birds in for scoring the volunteers record the bird’s beard length, spur length, and the bird’s weight. For the team scores the contest uses the beard and spur length only but adds the bird’s weight for the largest bird award.  The scoring system used was designed by the late Woody Coffee. The idea with using only the beard and spur lengths was useful to Woody because he used it on his website.  People would submit their pictures online showing a tape measure on the beard and spurs. From the beginning of the contest the League organizers realized that it could become a multi county event and would require additional check in points throughout the 9th District. 

For the 2009 contest, Team 8 and Team 5 both tied. Jacob Combs took Team 5’s bird and Bryan Millner took Team 8’s bird. Ironically in what you might call a freak of nature, both birds had the same score. Jacob’s bird had a 10.25" beard and 1" spurs on each leg for a total of 12.25. Bryan’s bird had a beard length of 10.5" and 7/8" spurs on each leg for a total score of 12.25. Jacob was teamed up with Tessa Brewster and Bryan Millner had Austin Turner on his team. Jacob Comb’s bird was also the heaviest bird taken for the day and he received the award for the largest bird as well with the turkey weighing in at a hefty 22.5 lbs. This is the first time organizers have seen a tie using this system. 

 "Woody has used it for several years and he’s never had a tie happen that I know of. In the 2 years of the competition we’ve not had both team members kill a bird, and I suppose that is the reason it happened," Walden said. "This year for instance last year’s winner Kendal Deaton didn’t get a bird but her partner Colby Young did. That’s why they call it hunting and not shooting."

Taking third place in the competition was the team of Isaac Tuttle and Travis Howard. Isaac was the successful hunter on the team with a nice bird that scored 11.625 on the team score and came in third place in the running for the largest bird of the day.  Colby Young and last year’s Largest Bird winner Kendall Deaton came in 4th this year. Colby was the successful hunter on the team with a bird scoring 10.625 and weighing in at 21 3/4 lbs. The fifth Place team consisted of Dakota Brewster and Sierra Thomas. If Sierra’s name sounds familiar to you, she’s the youngest person in the state of Kentucky to have taken an elk. Sierra was the successful hunter on the team.  While she had the third heaviest bird as her dad pointed out, it appeared the bird had been to the barbershop. The beard measured 7 3/4 inches with 7/8 inch spurs. Daniel Neal and Katie Anderson were the sixth place team with young Katie having taken the team’s turkey. A jake, Katie’s turkey had a five-inch beard and one-fourth inch spurs. Finally, the seventh place team was Jarred Tindon and Bradley Moore.  Jarred brought in another jake with a 4.75 inch beard and 5/16 inch spurs. 

Organizers would like to thank the sponsors of the 2009 Youth Turkey Challenge: The Clubs of the 9th District have all done their part:  Cumberland Valley Sports League, West Knox Wild Game, London Longspurs NWTF, Cumberland Valley RMEF, Bassin Baptist, Tri County Quail, Captain Tim Catron and the 9th District Officers, 9th District Commissioner Taylor Orr, Pulaski Bowhunters and the 9th District Kentucky Trappers

Corporate League Sponsors were:  Green Hill Mining, Pepsi Cola Bottling Co, London Cookie Factory, Kentucky Outdoorsman, Insurance Service Center, Burley Belt Law Service, Bill Dowd from Merit Construction, and Skip Walden Insurance.