Heading To The Turkey Woods With A Positive Mental Attitude
As I write this blog post it is the eve of the Minnesota turkey hunt opener for hunters who have been chosen to hunt during the fourth hunting slot (in Minnesota successful applicants must choose one 5–day hunting season time frame among a choice of eight total possible time frames). In other words, tomorrow morning is opening day for me even though turkey hunting has actually been going on now for other hunters the past 15 days in this state. Tomorrow is the first of 5 days I get to spring turkey hunt in Minnesota under the lottery system.
Actually it’s been about three years since I last got the opportunity to hunt turkeys in Minnesota. Two years ago I made a mistake and completely missed the application deadline…and last year was one of those years for building preference points to hunt in my selected area.
This year I’m really stoked about turkey hunting because it will be the second time I am doing so on my own property. Three years ago there admittedly wasn’t a whole lot of turkey sign to cause encouragement…but I tried it anyway hoping to lay claims of being the first person to ever shoot a turkey on this land. Now there is a lot more turkey sign everywhere, but still the farm is not the hot-bed of turkey action that I could realize even if I moved down the valley another mile or two…but oh, well. There’s just something special about being able to hunt on your own land so bagging a turkey on this farm would certainly be a special satisfaction.
Tonight as I prepped all my gear I laid it out to be certain that I will not overlook a much-needed item in the rush of getting out to the woods tomorrow morning. I sat out on the patio and decided to shoulder the Remington SP10 a few times because it has been awhile. It’s a heavy gun and ordinarily it wouldn’t be my gun of choice…but because I will not be walking a great distance tomorrow and because I am hunting from a blind…I will be able to use a gun pod for added support.
I once remember sitting at the base of a tree and holding that 10–gauge in a shooting position for about 5 minutes. It got so heavy and each passing minute seemed like another eternity. Finally, I had to relax and bring the gun back down to my thighs. All of this while there was a hen persistently walking the area trying to locate where I had been calling moments earlier. I didn’t want to scare her and dash any chances I would otherwise possibly experience with the tom a short ways away.
In my mind I have already shot that big tom that is walking around out in my woods. It’s called having a positive mental attitude and tomorrow morning I am heading out the door expecting to make the most of the next five days of turkey hunting that has been afforded to me. I practiced bringing the gun up quickly several times to get familiar with taking a “snap shot,” if that becomes necessary. In fact, I have run several different scenarios through my mind to prepare for many of the situations that might confront me.
When I look back on my notes I can see that about half of the times I have taken to the turkey woods I have been fortunate to be successful. This even during those years when I handicapped myself by perhaps not hunting in a prime turkey hot-spot and including those years when I hardly knew the first thing about what I was doing while I was turkey hunting.
As I take to the woods tomorrow morning I consider myself far from being any sort of a turkey hunting expert…but I believe I have the correct attitude for this year’s hunt that should make for another successful turkey hunting season.
2006 Jim Braaten. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction without Prior Permission.