ELK CITY, Kansas – Dr. Shawn Baquet and his daughter, Anna Baquet, defied all odds April 18, the day they both killed a turkey in Kansas on their first-ever turkey hunt.

On Easter Sunday, two days later, the Baquets savored fresh turkey rolls stuffed with cream cheese, onions, bell peppers wrapped in bacon and topped with jalapenos prepared by the doctor and his daughter. It was a tasty celebration.

“We were going to stay for two or three days if we had to. But we got our limit the first day. One to 1 ½ hours and we were done. One of the first things she (Anna) said was, ‘Good Friday’s a good day,’ ” her father said. “Yeah, it was a lot of luck. It’s not often I get that lucky.”

Baquet, his wife, Jeneen Baquet, and Anna left New Iberia around midday April 17. Jeneen drove to Kansas while her husband and youngest daughter pored over any info they could find on turkey hunting. Baquet had immersed himself in turkey calling, first with a mouth call, then a box call, then a slate with a “striker.”

Realizing his best bet probably was the slate rub, the bread and butter of a turkey hunter’s call selection, the trio stopped in Texarkana on the way, he said.

“I got another slate. It sounded good when I’d get it to work. I gave up on the mouth and box. It sounded funny,” he said.

They arrived at Dr. Jeremy Howell’s cabin neighboring their property after midnight, then set the alarm for 5:45 a.m. to start their first-ever turkey hunt, Jeneen said. Howell, a Hammond native and close friend, practices as a surgeon in Wichita, she said.

“I dropped them off at our property at 6:20 a.m. I decided to just ride around the area with windows down looking at all the deer moving and heard about three different sets of turkeys gobbling. It was exciting to hear that especially when I’ve never heard it before,” the avid bass angler and all-around outdoorswoman said via text to add to the turkey hunt story. “I called my cousin telling him about all the deer (about 50 total).”

All the while she wondered if her husband would be patient.

“And anyone that hunts with Shawn knows he can never be still and all I could think about was how is he going to sit still long enough to kill a turkey because you cannot move,” his wife said.

Baquet, 59, and Anna, a junior at LSU, also heard turkeys “talking” around sunrise.

“Anna and I looked at each other and kind of smiled. ‘We might get one’ ” was the prevailing thought, he said.

They picked a likely looking spot and planted a turkey decoy 25 yards in front of them.

How did the two arrive a couple states away from home overlooking an open field near a wooded area? The doctor who has specialized in family medicine since moving to New Iberia in 2005 had a ready answer.

“Look. So Anna, she’s been bugging me for three years. She said, ‘Dad, I want to kill a turkey.’ The first year I said, ‘Yeah, whatever’ and kind of blew it off. This year, again, she said, ‘Dad, I want to go kill a turkey,’ ” he said.

He made more calls than the year before, including to Texas and Missouri, learned about guided trips costing up to $3,000, then touched base with hunting buddies in Louisiana. One in-state call led to a suggestion he take Anna to Fort Johnson North WMA, formerly Peason Ridge WMA, 14 miles north of Leesville. The report indicated more turkeys were seen there this past winter than ever before.

Baquet also called a neighbor around the family’s property in Chautauqua County, Kansas.

“He said, ‘Yeah, we’ve been seeing more turkeys than ever.’ I had no clue about turkeys. I’m a bass fisherman in April. I fish Toledo Bend. April’s the best month to fish bass,” Baquet said.

Anna said, “I’ve been asking him for a while now. It never happened. We never came around to it … until this year. At first, we were going to go to Fort Johnson and Toledo Bend because it was a closer drive. (But) our neighbors in Kansas said there were turkeys around, a better chance.”

As the sun rose on Good Friday, they were ready. “I heard one in front of us on our property. There was one in back. Three toms (total),” Baquet said, adding at the time the birds were 400 to 500 yards away.

He kept scraping the slate rub. The gaggle of turkeys ambled closer but it seemed to take forever. The possibility of killing one of them became clearer, which accounts for his excitement.

Why?

“They were getting their full bloom. They would gobble. We could see them coming. She said, ‘Dad, why are you breathing so hard?’ I said, ‘Because I’m nervous.’ I mean, we drove all the way to Kansas. We might kill something,” he said. “And it worked out. Right now. She loves me. She wanted to do something on her bucket list and I helped make it come true.”

The sequence of events crawled. He wanted to do something.

“I’m getting impatient and said, ‘I’ve got to get up and get closer.’ She grabbed my shirt and said, ‘Sit down!’ ” he recalled.

While cramming for the upcoming turkey hunting test on a computer and listening on headphones during the ride to Kansas, he said, Anna took mental note about one of five mistakes turkey hunters make. “She read, ‘If you think it’s time to get up, wait another 15 minutes,’ ” he said.

Anna said, “Yeah, he was getting up. He had mentioned a couple of times before to get up and go around. I said, ‘Sit down! Wait a couple of minutes.’ ”

“They were coming toward us diagonally. The one in front (a male) kept walking. The four hens stayed in the middle,” the construction major said. “They were just staying put. Ninety yards in front of us. He kept calling. After about 10 minutes the birds, they got closer. He said, ‘We might have a chance.’ ”

The turkeys ambled to within 90 yards, then 40 yards per her rangefinder.

“I started doing the yelp call. I’d do it three, four times. I said, ‘I ain’t got nothing to lose so I’ll keep doing it.’ It took a while. They just kind of stopped 5 or 10 minutes and stayed in one spot. Then they started walking our way. So they got about 25 yards. I said, ‘Pick a big one,’ ” he said.

Anna was sitting against a tree with both knees up and the Beretta A300 shotgun resting on her lap. Hunting fever approached full steam.

“It’s really fun and exciting to hear them come closer. Finally, they strut right in by the decoy we had in front of us. I shoot. He’s down. One shot did the trick,” she said, noting she aimed for the top of its neck and bottom of its head.

Anna nearly stood up to go retrieve it but stayed put, following her own advice. The other turkeys stuck around, also, and her father fired his Beretta A400 at full choke with 3-inch No. 4 lead shot three times.

“That’s a trip I will never forget. I’m still amazed about it. And, look, she’s mature enough now she tells me what to do sometimes. It was a proud moment. I mean, she made me sit down,” Baquet said about his daughter who returned to Louisiana a week earlier from a Spring Break church mission to Paquera, Costa Rica, one she called a “fulfilling” spiritual experience with others from Christ the King Parish & LSU Catholic Center.

“My Dad. He’s not the most smiley person on earth (but) he was really, really excited,” Anna said about the turkey hunt’s immediate aftermath. A video she took as they hurried to retrieve the big birds shows the shared joy between hunter and huntress.

Her mother said, “As an outdoor person it brought tears to my eyes seeing both of them bond and share this special moment together. I just wish I could have called my dad who passed away this past September. He is always the first person we call after a hunt and a special moment like this.”

Anna appreciated her first turkey hunt.

“I think I’ve got to rank it a close second to duck hunting. Yeah, I mean, there’s just nothing like it. I love getting them to come in, the gobbling, calling them in, like mallards. It’s more rewarding. It feels like you worked more for the hunt,” said the CHS graduate who’s an avid deer/duck  hunter with five deer kills and “maybe like 100 ducks.”

She noted she’s seen many more deer but she’s “picky.” In other words, she lets deer walk.

Her mother said, “Eighteen hours of driving … some couldn’t believe we would drive that far but honestly you can’t put a price tag on memories like this.”