While waiting for the contest to start, I hung out with Toby and my Mom and other brother Dusty who had came with us and I practiced my calling with Toby. There were a couple of guys there giving seminars for the Redhead's Next Generation Hunting Team and I listened to their talk and afterwards they both came over and gave me their pictures and we talked. They're only nineteen, but they get to hunt all over the country for their Next Generation cable TV show, which must be pretty cool.

I was in the Junior division and I was drawn to go up in the fourth position. I was so nervous! Before they let us up on stage, they gave us a slip of paper with the calls they expected us to do and when I got on stage the emcee would say, "Caller number four do your..." and we went through all of the calls they had written down. I had to do the "cutting of an excited hen", a "fly-down cackle", the "yelp of a hen", and my best call, which I "purred". I used Toby's box call for the cutting and cackling and Mr. Brian's call for my yelping and purring.

I had a lot of people asking me where I got my calls and I told them, "Heirloom Turkey Calls!" One guy was a call maker himself and also in the competition and he walks up all cocky and asks, "Isn't that one of my calls?" I quickly told him, "Nope!"

When it was over, I didn't think I had done very well because all of the other competitors sounded so good, but when they called out my name and announced I had placed second overall of the other kids in the Junior class I was so excited and Toby was grinning from ear to ear!

I won a really big trophy with a strutting gobbler on top of it and also a gift card for a hundred bucks from Bass Pro Shops!

Now, I can't wait until next year when i intend to win first!

Thanks Toby and Mr. Brian!