Turkey Hunting Alone in MN

Throughout the year, I spend a lot of time in the turkey woods with a lot of other hunters. This spring I had the pleasure of seeing fellow IDO member – John Kutz “kooty” shoot a big tom and I also got to see my wife – Tina “blush” shoot a nice tom. Even though I love spending time with others in the blind, I also like to spend time by myself as I reflect about life and all the things that I still need to accomplish. The plan was to take a mature tom with my bow out of a blind.

My season started and the weather was terrible with lots of rain. I couldn’t even drive out to our hunting cabin and ended up using an ATV and a trailer to haul all my gear.

I woke up the first morning and the thermometer said it was 38 degrees and it was still raining out. I headed to the same location where I arrowed a tom last year with Kooty behind the camera. This is a small food plot in the middle of a big woodlot that the turkeys love to use to cross back and forth. I set up my new DSD hen decoys, zipped up the XL Covert Blind and prepared to sit for most of the day. The morning was uneventful and I never heard a single gobble. Time slowly passed by and the rain continued to come down. However, I knew this was a good spot and if I was going to kill a tom with my bow, this is where I wanted to be on our property. About 10 am, I finally caught some movement to my left and saw a couple of jakes. They really didn’t show much interest until I scratched out a soft yelp on my slate call. They slowly approached, walked right past the alert decoy and ended up circling the feeding hen decoy.

DSD hen decoy setup!

About that time, I spotted another turkey from where they had come from and quickly realized it was a tom. He too slowly approached and then proceeded to run off the jakes. He eventually settled down and then went into full strut slowly approaching the feeding hen decoy. I just let him come and enjoyed the show. It’s moments like this where I feel time just kind of stops. He wasn’t going anywhere and I was just enjoying the show and examining his movements from a mere 7 yards away. I had the mesh screen covering my shooting window so I knew he couldn’t see me in the blind.

I even let out a soft yelp, trying to make him gobble but he just stood there in full strut circling the decoy. Then I started kicking myself for not bringing out the video camera. However, with the rain I didn’t want to chance getting it wet. After a couple of minutes, I finally realized it was time and pulled back my bow, took aim and released the arrow. The tom dropped immediately to the ground and died right in his tracks. The jakes came back to investigate and actually hung around for another 10 minutes. I had fun, throwing an array of calls at them but they could care less. At one time, a jake was only 3 yards away and I blasted him a loud yelp with a box call and he didn’t even look at me. LOL…

As I carried my tom back to the cabin in the rain, I started to realize how special of a place we have for hunting. A couple a hundred yards away from where I killed this turkey is where I shot my buck last fall. It’s easy to take things for granted and it was a reminder for me to appreciate what we have and to make it even better for the next generation.

Hunting alone is not for everyone but for me it kind of a cleansing. I think about what I can do to be a better husband, father, brother, child and friend. It’s a chance for me to set some goals in all aspects of my life and another chance to appreciate and respect the wonderful nature that god has given us. Life is truly precious and turkey hunting alone helps keep that in perspective.