This 11-year-old girl couldn’t go skiing, but instead got a private turkey hunting trip

Reagan Van Buskirk is one determined turkey hunter.

Not even a broken foot that had her on crutches could keep the 11-year-old from bagging her very first wild turkey this season.

And what a bird it was: The 3-year-old gobbler had a 9-inch beard, 1 1/4-inch spurs and weighed about 20 pounds, and it put on a show. The bird strutted virtually non-stop before finally approaching Reagan and coming to within 15 yards.

“I thought it doesn’t really matter,” Reagan said when I asked her if she would’ve shot a jake, which is a year-old gobbler. “I’d love to shoot a gobbler. That’s my top priority, my goal. I’m like if I shoot a jake, I can live with that, but to get a gobbler of that size and to be strutting for about an hour, it was terrific.

“I felt thankful. Really thankful that I got it.”

A sixth-grader in the magnet program at Pompano Beach Middle School who is on the debate team — she won a competition a few weeks ago — Reagan broke her foot while playing basketball for her school. She thought it was a sprain at the time, so she finished the game, but when the pain didn’t subside, X-rays revealed the fracture.

The heavy blue cast on her leg and crutches meant Reagan couldn’t go with her parents and three younger siblings on the family’s Spring Break skiing trip in Colorado. Luckily, her grandfather Chuck Van Buskirk, who lives in Deerfield Beach, was able to arrange a turkey hunt for her on private land in Central Florida, where the season runs through April 21, and they invited me to tag along.

We arrived late in the afternoon, scouted an area where Chuck had seen turkeys before and set up a blind that would be easy for Reagan to access the following morning.

The hunt started slowly, with just a handful of distant gobbles at sunrise. Then it became both thrilling and frustrating when Reagan spotted a hen and then a gobbler some 250 yards from the blind at 9 a.m.

Spring is mating season for wild turkeys, and the males gobble, puff out their feathers and strut to attract the attention of females. This particular gobbler strutted all around the hen, never getting too far from her, while staying more than 150 yards from the three of us despite the yelps, clucks, cackles and other hen sounds coming from our turkey calls.

The two birds eventually disappeared, but we were only slightly disappointed. Reagan had hunted turkeys last season with her father, Kyle, and her grandfather, and they heard and saw several gobblers

“Unfortunately, we didn’t get one,” she said, “but it was still really cool just to see the turkeys.”

I mentioned to my companions that hens will often go to their nests after hanging out with a gobbler early in the morning, and that’s when gobblers look for company, so we agreed to stay in the blind a little longer. I used the new Primos Clear Cutter box call to yelp loudly and aggressively in the hopes that another gobbler would come in for a mid-morning rendezvous.

The original gobbler and hen suddenly appeared, Chuck spotting them on the other side of a ditch about 220 yards away, not far from where we’d last seen the birds.

This time, the hen eased away from the gobbler, who gobbled three or four times to our calls, strutted and kept looking at George, our jake decoy. Unsure if the gobbler would follow the hen, I clucked and yelped on the box call to maintain his interest. He went down into the ditch and when he re-appeared on our side and headed toward George, the excitement started to build.

It was clear that the turkey was coming in to give our decoy a beating, which is what dominant gobblers do to younger males. Reagan waited patiently as the gobbler came closer and closer.

“My heart was beating really fast and very loud,” she said. “I’m surprised the turkey didn’t hear it. It was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to be it.’ I was just so excited when I had the gun and he was right next to the decoy.

“When I shot him, I was like, ‘I can’t believe I did it.’ I was so excited. It was my first shot at a wild animal and I got my first turkey. I was just overly excited.”

So was her grandfather.

“I literally had to look away when he got so close,” he said. “I was looking through a little slit [in the blind] and I go, ‘Oh, I can’t watch.’ As soon as he got to George, I was so nervous that he was going to get away and all of a sudden, Bang!”

Using a single-shot 20-gauge shotgun, Reagan made the most of her opportunity. It was 11 a.m. when the gobbler flopped to the ground.

After admiring the bird, Reagan called her parents and siblings to tell them the news. They were surprised and delighted, but I doubt they were as thrilled as Chuck and I were.

Witnessing the successful initiation of a turkey hunter has that effect on you.