One More Sit: 6-Year-Old Kai Demro Sets Iowa Turkey Record

“Dad, I just want to go play and go have fun and run around and laugh with my friends,” Kai said.

His father, Randy Demro, understood. Randy’s goal has never been to make his son sit longer than he can handle or turn hunting into a chore. Still, the woods were so quiet that Randy felt they should wait a little longer.

The wind was still. Few songbirds were calling, and the deer they usually saw had not appeared.

“I told him, ‘Buddy, it’s been way too quiet. Like, I think something’s gonna happen,’” Randy said.

Soon, thunder rolled across the northern Iowa countryside, and a gobbler answered from the opposite ridge.

By the end of the evening, Kai had harvested a five-bearded Eastern wild turkey that would be confirmed as a new Iowa record in the NWTF Wild Turkey Records Program.

Learning From a Miss

The hunt began several days earlier, when Kai shot at a gobbler and missed.

Rather than allowing the missed opportunity to define the season, Randy used what they had learned. The turkeys had been moving through the woods about 50 yards from their blind, so he moved it closer, setting it roughly 25 yards from their travel route.

It was a productive stretch of woods. On three separate hunts, the bird Kai missed, a turkey harvested by Kai’s mother, and the eventual record gobbler were each standing within the same roughly 5-yard area when the shots were taken.

On the day of the record-setting hunt, Randy picked Kai up from school at about 3:30 p.m. They changed into camouflage and drove about 5 miles from their home in Nashua, in Chickasaw County, to the hunting property in neighboring Floyd County.

They slipped into the blind around 4 p.m. Randy brought snacks and an iPad to help Kai through the slow periods.

For nearly two hours, little happened. Then a thunderstorm began moving toward them.

Randy called on his trusty custom Neil Jacobs Headhunter box call, and five to 10 minutes later, a gobbler answered from about 110 to 120 yards away. They spotted the bird on the opposite hillside, feeding and moving along the ridge. Every time thunder sounded, the gobbler answered.

Then one gobble became two.

Randy called again, and both birds responded. A few minutes later, they appeared on the hillside and began working uphill before disappearing into thicker cover.

Randy did not call again.

About 20 minutes later, the two gobblers came down the hillside at nearly a half-jog. One reached the bottom, stretched its neck and looked for the hen it believed it had heard.

Randy offered a few soft purrs and clucks on a slate call. The gobbler disappeared into the creek bottom below the blind.

Taking the Shot

Kai was hunting with a Stevens 301 single-shot .410 loaded with No. 9 TSS. The shotgun rested in a BOG tripod for stability.

The gun was positioned in the blind’s right-side window, but the gobbler approached from the left. Randy carefully moved the shotgun to the window in front of him and told Kai to get ready.

Three to five minutes later, the gobbler’s head appeared above the ridge. The bird worked its way up the hillside directly in front of the blind.

Randy could tell Kai was nervous, especially after missing earlier in the week.

“I told him, like, ‘You got all the time in the world, just take a couple deep breaths, and shoot when you’re ready,’” Randy said.

Kai settled behind the red-dot sight, aimed and pulled the trigger.

The gobbler dropped.

When Randy and Kai reached the bird, its head was tucked beneath its body. Randy rolled the turkey over and immediately noticed something unusual.

“I looked up at him, I’m like, ‘Oh, buddy, like, you got something special here,’” Randy said.

At first, they believed the bird had four beards.

“I thought he had four beards, and then when my dad double checked, he actually had five,” Kai said.

They had not seen the multiple beards before the shot. From inside the blind, the turkey appeared to be another mature gobbler.

Kai shot the bird at about 7:20 p.m., roughly 40 to 45 minutes before the end of legal shooting time. A light rain began as they packed the blind and gathered their equipment. They had traveled only about a quarter-mile down the road when the rain began pouring.

Making the Record Official

The family planned to take the bird to a taxidermist first, but a family friend, Troy White, called while they were on the road. After hearing the shortest beard appeared to be about 7 inches long, White urged Randy to have the turkey officially weighed before it lost any weight.

Randy contacted a local meat locker and confirmed that its scale was certified (all Easterns, Rio Grandes, Merriam’s and Gould’s entered into the NWTF Wild Turkey Records weighing more than 22 pounds must be weighed to the nearest ounce on scales inspected and certified as accurate for trade by the State Department of Agriculture). They weighed the bird – it weighed 19 pounds, but better safe than sorry – and photographed both the turkey on the scale and the scale’s certification.

They then took the gobbler to Twin Creek taxidermist, where owner Dana Shultz, who is familiar with the NWTF scoring system, used steel measuring rules to measure the beards, spurs and other scoring components. Randy watched the process and recorded the measurements.

As they added the numbers, they realized the turkey would surpass the previous Iowa record, scoring 138 points, around 20 more than the previous record holder. The gobbler had 47 inches of beard, and the longest beard measured 11.625 inches. It is the 47th highest total score all time and third highest score by a youth since records began in 1982, according to the NWTF Wild Turkey Records.

When Kai learned what he had accomplished, his reaction was simple.

“I was amazed,” he said.

Kai was 6 when he harvested the gobbler and turned 7 about two weeks later. The record bird was his sixth turkey.

Keeping Youth Hunting Fun

Kai’s success came through practice, preparation and a willingness to keep trying after a miss.

Before the season, Randy took him to practice at 35 yards with the same shotgun and ammunition he would use while hunting. They checked the red-dot sight, changed its batteries, and made sure Kai was comfortable with the setup.

Randy also lets Kai choose when he wants to hunt, and many of their hunts together take place during the afternoon or midday rather than before sunrise.

“I don’t push him to get up in the morning,” Randy said. “I don’t want to ruin it for him.”

The priority, he said, is simple: “It has to be fun.”

For Randy, introducing a child to hunting means bringing snacks, offering entertainment during slow stretches and recognizing when the child has had enough. It also means using time outside to teach lessons beyond harvesting a turkey.

“There’s so many teaching moments while you’re out there, and it’s not just about hunting,” Randy said.

Those lessons might involve identifying a flower, watching birds interact or learning why wildlife behaves differently as weather approaches.

Kai rarely needs encouragement to return to the woods. He is often the one asking his dad to go hunting.

Randy has hunted turkeys since 1999 and believes Iowa hunters may now be experiencing some of the best turkey hunting the state has offered. The top six scoring turkeys in Iowa have all been harvested in the last five years. Still, the record is not the only part of the experience that matters to him.

His greater goal is to raise a young hunter who remains excited about the outdoors.

“I think it’s big, like, just big to get kids out there and get them involved and get the next generation rolling,” Randy said.