A Turkey Hunt to Remember

Here at Redneck Hunting Blinds, we love contest giveaways. Sometimes we give away blinds; sometimes we give away chairs or feeders. Recently we gave away a guided turkey hunt. Pete Benetatos was the lucky hunter who won the hunt by participating in a Facebook hunt giveaway we did in conjunction with GrowingDeer TV.

Benetatos got to hunt with famed biologist, Dr. Grant Woods who knows a few things about whitetail management and turkey hunting. The hunt took place at Redneck Farms and from the moment the sun came up until the gun was fired, Benetatos was in the middle of turkeys. “There are a lot of turkeys on that farm,” said Benetatos. Watching all the turkeys chasing each other around and trying to figure out how to get a shot was fun.”

Pete, Grant and Adam, the camera man, climbed into the blind at 5:15 in the morning. “At one point, we had 17 jakes in front of the blind. We had jakes as close as three yards. We could have almost reached out and grabbed them by the neck. All three men were sitting inside a Redneck Bale Blind for the entire hunt. I was very impressed with the amount of room in a bale blind. We could sit comfortably and talk without feeling cramped,” Benetatos said.

The biggest problem was the jakes that kept the longbeards from approaching the blind. “With several jakes around, getting a shot was difficult. After spending several hours in the blind, we decided we had to do something if we wanted to kill a longbeard,” Benetatos said with a laugh. “So we started playing musical chairs. The longbeard was hanging around at about 70 yards out in the field and I started switching chairs with Grant and our camera man, Adam. I was trying to get into position to take a long shot, but we needed the bird to come a little closer.”

In Missouri, turkey hunters must stop hunting at 1 p.m. so Benetatos knew if they were going to kill a bird, he was going to have to take a long shot. “Luckily I was using Grant’s Winchester turkey gun which had a Nikon scope on it. We were using the Winchester Longbeard XR long range turkey load. The bird eventually made a few steps and I took a shot at 67 yards. It was the longest shot I have ever taken in the woods when turkey hunting. There is no way in heck I could have made the shot without having a scope on the gun,” Benetatos recalled.

The hunt was a huge success and so was the bird. “My tom had a 10-inch beard, a 1-5/8” spur and a 1-1/4” spur, so he was at least a 3-year-old bird and may have been older than that,” Benetatos said. “I had a great time hunting with Grant and Adam and I really enjoyed seeing the Redneck Factory and seeing where the blinds were made. The bale blinds and the tower blinds are amazing.”

The nice thing about this hunt is Benetatos will be able to relive the hunt as many times as he wants because it was all filmed for an episode on GrowingDeer TV. “It was fun being filmed for Grant’s show and learning from him,” Benetatos said. “There is no question he knows a lot about land management.”