Gert’s 2009 Spring Turkey Hunt

[Editor’s Note: Late last year, we ran a story about Gert von Gontard, a remarkable young hunter who took his first buck during Missouri’s 2008 youth deer season. What’s amazing about Gert’s story is that he’s been blind since birth. But with a little ingenuity and some help from family friends Tom Sommer and Adolphus Busch IV, Gert beat the odds to notch his first deer. The story that follows recounts Gert’s most recent accomplishment—harvesting his first spring gobbler.]

Here we go again, after our tremendous 2008 Missouri deer season, Gert and I had big shoes to fill if we were going to chase a spring gobbler. Gert is a very happy and uplifting young man, and I have had the privilege of becoming his friend and hunting partner. This is how our spring turkey hunt fell into place.

I started planning our turkey hunt just a few days after Gert harvested his great buck. If you could have spent the time preparing for the deer hunt and witnessed the true excitement that Gert showed when his trophy hit the ground like I did, then I think anybody could understand my haste in getting ready for our spring hunt.

After keeping an eye on the bird movement at our hunting location, Belleau Farm, and in talking to others who had hunted the farm in recent seasons, it became fairly obvious which area of the farm had produced more spring gobblers than any other. But the difficult part was yet to come. With the deer hunt we had the convenience of distance and an elevated blind to cover some of our noise and any extra movements. I began to wonder how we would get so close to a gobbler with our special hunting needs. A blind was probably the only true option that would work. Owning a pop-up blind, I started to do some measuring and quickly realized there just wasn’t enough room to maneuver. I tried to put this dilemma on the back burner until I knew a little more about how much room we would really need.

It was time to get serious about the gun. I needed to somehow mount the gun on a chair, and I had an idea that I had been toying with—a barber’s chair. It spins, it has a leg rest, and it could be raised or lowered to help Gert aim the gun. But it was just too big. One day on the way to work I passed by an office furniture store, and the idea hit me: an office chair! I didn’t quite know how, but I knew the idea was worth a look. Fortunately, I had saved several discarded office chairs that work great in deer stands. After digging out different styles of chairs, a bit of a plan came together. Unlike the deer rifle setup that Gert had used, a turkey hunt would not allow as much movement. It was necessary for Gert to become one with the gun. That’s where the office chair came into play. By cutting apart three different styles of chairs, the key parts could be taken from each one. We needed a chair that would (1) swivel for side-to-side shooting, (2) recline for up-and-down aiming, and (3) have a metal frame, so that some sort of gun holder could be welded to withstand the torque from the blast.

So the welding, cutting apart, and re-welding was on. Then I needed a gun. Sorting through a few automatics, I chose a Baikal because all of the moving parts were in the forearm. This allowed the stock to be removed so that Gert would not receive any impact from the blast. As luck would have it, this particular gun had a good solid fastening point on both the butt and the forearm. The raised scope on Gert’s deer rifle seemed to be a little much for a shotgun, but I liked the concept. After some thinking on the matter, a similar aiming device was created by fastening a length of 2-inch PVC pipe above the shotgun barrel, making it possible to sight the target.

With the chair finished and the gun ready to shoot, it was time to put more effort into the hunting blind. With Gert in his chair and me positioned behind him, I realized that we needed a big blind. The most practical blind for us was a stationary one. The only problem, however, was once the blind was built, that was it, we were stuck there. Since we had plans to possibly film the hunt, we would also need room in the blind for a cameraman. So we built a small shed under a large tree, along the edge of a clover field. With the help of the long, saggy branches and the camo paint job, it fit in pretty well. I just hoped it was in the right spot!

By that point we were about two weeks out from the youth portion of Missouri’s spring turkey season and, with Gert being 15, we decided to give our setup a try. As luck would have it, the birds started showing up in the field almost on a daily basis.

Throughout the entire process, I kept Gert up to speed on the plans for the upcoming hunt. He was very pumped and showed a great deal of excitement. After making final plans with the cameraman, we were set for the first day. It would be Gert; his father, Phillip; the cameraman; and myself. The plan was to meet at Belleau Farm at 4:45 a.m. Unfortunately, Adolphus Busch IV, the owner of Belleau Farm and part of Gert’s hunting team, could not be in town for the hunt, but he gave Gert his best wishes and told him that he wanted a full report afterwards.

That first morning everyone arrived on time. There was little to no wind. It was a little chilly, but the conditions seemed right. We got set up in the blind and were ready for daybreak in plenty of time. Shortly before daylight, a group of hens started yelping excitedly in the trees not more than 50 yards behind us. I didn’t like this; it seemed as if they were uneasy about something. I was afraid we may have spooked them while getting into the blind. As they dropped into the field to our left, Phillip signaled that he could see one bird, then two. All at once, with absolutely no advance warning, a mature gobbler strutted into view from the left, making a beeline toward the strutting tom/hen decoy set we had placed about 20 yards in front of our blind.

Gert and I had our new shooting style ready. When I laid my hand on his neck, it was his cue to take the safety off and be ready to shoot. If the shot presented itself, my cue to pull the trigger would be a gentle pinch on the neck. Even though the bird caught us by surprise, we were still able to get in position for a shot. It happened so fast that we had no film of the gobbler. The cameraman asked us to hold the shot for a bit. This proved to be a great idea for the gobbler! The nervous hens from earlier were now about 80 yards out in front of us. Whether they saw something they didn’t like, or perhaps they didn’t want to share their gobbler, it did not matter. It was over; the bird was out of our comfortable range as quick as he had entered it.

We spent the next few hours watching this beauty show off for his ladies several hundred yards out in front of us. Then Gert said something very disturbing to me. He said, “I don’t need a video, I can’t see.” This hit me like a ton of bricks. We had forgotten that the hunt was all about Gert! This was the only day that we would be able to hunt the youth season due to some bad scheduling on my part, so not letting Gert shoot was really eating at me.

After relaying the details of the hunt to Adolphus, he made the call that the farm was to be rested until Gert could get another crack at it. The opening day of the season was on a Monday and, after persuading Gert’s parents, they decided to allow him to miss school for a few hours to go hunting. On the Friday afternoon before the opening Monday, Gert called and said a special test had come up, and he really needed to be in school on the opening day. I assured him that would be fine and told him to keep me updated on when he could hunt.

A few days passed with no word from Gert, which was very unusual for him. I made a call to his father and got the news that Gert was under the weather and had missed school all week. The news made me feel sick because when Gert falls ill, it can sometimes last for weeks. Now I really felt that I had let him down by not telling him to shoot when we had that great bird in range on youth weekend. So when Wednesday came and Gert called to tell me that he was feeling much better and would be back in school the next day, you can only imagine how excited I was for him. The plan was made to hunt Saturday morning, April 25.

At 4 a.m. that Saturday it was 76 degrees and windy. We were in the blind well before we needed to be. As the first hopes of daylight arrived, we heard all sorts of song birds but no gobbles. Not liking this, I made a small tree yelp. Nothing. We sat quietly for about 15 minutes, and I gave another series of yelps. Again nothing. After a bit, I peaked out around the corner of the blind. There was a gobbler walking very fast toward our decoys. Undetected, I slid behind Gert and whispered, “Quick, get ready, we have one coming in very fast.” Within seconds, the big guy was in sight in front of the blind. As he began to slow down, I gave a cluck, and he picked up the pace again. Everything was just perfect. He crossed to within 20 yards (our gun’s sweet spot), then let out a putt, putt. The gig was up, and the bird turned to leave. Instead of our “neck pinch” signal, I whispered to Gert, “Shoot him!” Gert was ready. The shot was solid and the gobbler went down. I shouted, “Good shot, man, you got him!” Now only Phillip and I saw Gert’s huge smile and heard his screams of joy, but I’m sure you can almost see and hear it too!

We quickly went out to see just how nice the gobbler was. It weighed 23 pounds, had 1 3/8-inch spurs, and a thick 10-inch beard. What a trophy! After taking a few pictures and giving a lot of congratulations, Phillip went to get the truck while Gert and I sat in the sun reminiscing about the hunt. Gert asked for my phone. He was so excited and immediately called Adolphus and told him about his kill.

As we were waiting for Phillip to arrive with the truck, Gert piped up and said, “Hey buddy, what do you say we try to shoot a duck or two this fall?” Choked up, I answered, “Well, dude, we’ve only got seven months. We had better get started working on it!” So I have a strong suspicion that you’ll be hearing more from this determined little hunter around the first frost.

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