I once heard Babe Winkelman say "the first time you hunt turkey is for the adventure, every time after that is for revenge!. On April 21 I set out for my elusive first turkey. Spring 2008 would be my third season and I was feeling pretty confident that this was the year for revenge!
Day 1: I rolled out of bed at 4:30 AM and made it to the field by 5:30. I hauled my gear to location I wanted to set up at and found myself in the middle of a bunch of gobblers. I fumbled with my double bull for about 5 minutes and finally broke a rod trying to get the thing set up. I love my Double Bull blind and haven't had any issues with it over the past 2 yrs. For some reason it didn't want to cooperate on my opening morning....an omen of how my week would turn out!
I was seated on the edge of a field surrounded by hills to my right and left. On the right, I had gobblers; on my left, I had a hen yelping. If all went as planned the gobblers would come off the roost and into the field to meet up with the hen yelping. I saw this happen
last year and thought this would be a great place for my first day. Well, it didn't go as planned; the birds came around me in the hills and went to an upper pasture to strut. That's where I would set up for day two. I did, however, see 12 deer which is nice because I'll be back in September chasing them with my bow!
Day 2: The day started the same...4:30 wake/5:30 in the field. I found an opening on a fence line, set up my decoys and got comfortable. We had a storm the night before and the birds where quiet. At about 8:00 I had a jake and four hens come by. I was able to interact with the jake practicing my mouth calls but opted not to shoot. I have visions of what my first turkey will look like....it wasn't him! As the birds moved on I looked to my right and had a doe about 15 feet from me. I don't know who scared who more...we bothed jumped at the same time. To others followed her. For some reason seeing deer reduces my frustration of not shooting a turkey! I believe the birds went off property this day as I didn't see or hear anymore birds. I left, a little frustrated, but with a revised plan for day 3.
Day 3: 4:30/5:30...you know what I mean. I decided to sit on a creek bed and catch the birds moving through the trees. Sounds simple enough! The birds were very active pre-sunrise and I felt good about my setup. I saw a couple birds get down from the roost and heard them gobble as they left the property in the direction opposite of what I needed! At this point I was ready to hang it up for the year. About 10 minutes later I heard a gun shot in the direction the birds headed. 10 minutes after that, I had gobblers within 100 yards of me! I was able to call in a gobbler to about 30 yards but I had too much brush between me and him to shoot. I think he figured something was up as he turned and ran off. Oh well...I still have 2 more days to hunt. Later that day, around 4:00 PM, I feel asleep on the futon at work... I went home around 5:30.....
Day 4: ......Still sleeping. I'm now officially sick. I pretty much slept 24 hours. There would be no turkey hunting for me today. My good friend, Jon Rausch, would be hunting the property Thursday evening. I shared my experience from days 1-3 and told him what I would do if I could get out of bed. He proceeds to the field, in a driving rain, stalks a couple of jakes and ambushes one. His hunt lasted 90 minutes.
Day 5: I've decided this year wouldn't be my year. I've got too much going on to be out today so I packed up my gear and will start preparing for 2009.
While 2008 wasn't a successful turkey season, you'd be mistaken if you thought it was a bad season. I saw deer and turkeys everyday. On day three as I was laying on the ground in the middle of the woods surrounded by gobbling birds, I thought of my friends stuck in traffic surrounded by angry commuters! I witnessed three amazing sunrises and experienced three peaceful mornings. Bird or no bird, not a bad week of hunting! I've also enjoyed sending my friends the photo of 2008 Minnesota Turkey!
Just came back from my first South Dakota pheasant hunt. What an amazing place; I've never see so many pheasants in my life. Other wildlife abounds as well; mule deer, whitetails, antelope, coyotes... And the rolling prairies make you feel like you're on the set of Dances with Wolves.
We hunted a private ranch about 20 miles southeast of Chamberlain near Hamill. This place is a pheasant Mecca! In one strip of sorgram, we flushed (with the assistance of the dogs above and 3 coyotes!) over 300 birds. Needless to say we shot our limit each of the three days we hunted. We had to pace ourselves or we'd be done hunting by noon each day.
I highly recommend this trip if you've never done it. I'm thinking with will become an annual affair for me!
The voice inside your head, among other things, is concerned about self-preservation, survival, risk-aversion, pain-aversion and avoidance of embarrassment. When you're about to make a sales call, it's the voice inside your head that says "your customer is talking to your competitor and will probably purchase from them". If you go on to make the call and eventually make the sale, it's the voice inside your head that says "your asking price was too low!". If you're running a marathon, it's the voice inside your head that tells you "you didn't train hard enough. Quit now! Nobody will care. This is too painful. It's not worth it". And when you finish the marathon with a personal-best time, it's the voice inside your head that says "you were off pace at mile 18 and could have run faster.". Navy Seals are trained to disregard this voice and because of this, they remain focused on their objectives in the most extreme elements and accomplish superhuman feats. Top performers in all fields in some way, shape or form have at some point disregarded the voice inside their head (and the voices of their peers) and gone on to achieve great things.
I discovered the voice inside my head when I was alone in my deerstand in Northern Minnesota trying to harvest your first deer in November, 2005. This was the 3rd year in a row I had hunted deer; the first two seasons were disappointing largely due to my lack of preparation. 2005 was different. My planning was more complete; my equipment was finely tuned and I was well versed in how to use it. I had access to a better hunting ground and had mapped out the area and marked the distances of my all shooting lanes.
I was in my stand on opening day by 5:30 AM. At 6:30 AM I noted it was light enough that I could see a fence about 350 yards away. I knew that the hunt was on and soon the sound of gun shots would echo from a distance as other hunters achieved the success I sought.
About 30 seconds later I saw two flashes of white in an opening about 50 yards from my stand. The white flashes were the tails of two fawns that ran across a clearing and stopped at the tree line. Ten yards behind the fawns was a rather large doe. At this point my pulse went from 65 to about 165. I positioned myself to see if I had a clear shot. As luck would have it, there was a branch in my line of fire and before I had a clear shot, the doe turned her head, flipped her tail, and bolted into the woods with her two fawns. Why was this lucky? Deer Hunting 101 tells you if a doe looks behind her she's probably being chased by a buck. I know this useful fact. In the heat of the moment I didn't remember this. If the voice inside my head was my friend, it would have reminded me of this fact. Instead, the voice inside my head told me I just neglected to take the only shot I would have this season. Thirty minutes later, fate would prove the voice wrong.
My eye caught site of a deer about 200 yards from my stand moving in my general direction. My pulse rate did the standard 65/165 jump (deer hunting is not for the feint of heart!) but I was able to calm myself and lay back in my stand and wait for my shot. What seemed like an hour but was more like 5 minutes, a large deer walked along a row of pine trees about 100 yards from my stand. At this point I could tell it was a buck although I couldn't tell if it had a large rack. As if that mattered! This buck was mine. I aligned the crosshairs of the scope on my 30-06 rifle with the vitals of the deer. He was at about 75 yards quartering towards me when I took my shot. The deer dropped his head and bucked like a bronco as the shot echoed across the pasture. He bolted straight for the woods and I had the presence of mind to get a good mark on where he went in.
When you shoot a deer it's advisable to wait before you track it. If a deer is wounded you're bound to push him in front of you (off the property) and you might not find him. If you wait, the deer will stop and most likely die. It was 7:10 and I decided to wait 30 minutes. 30 minutes of quality time with me and the voice inside my head. This is what the voice had to say:
"Your shot was probably off. You wounded him. You didn't kill him."
"You've never tracked a deer before; how are you going to find him?"
"Hell, if you find him, you've never gutted a deer before. How are you going to do that?"
"OK, it's been 5 minutes, you can go look for him now."
"I don't think you hit him squarely otherwise he would have dropped dead on the spot."
"You just shot a small deer...the deal with your hunting partner was that only bucks 8 points or bigger and you probably just shot a 4 pointer. You'll catch hell for that!"
"Even if you shot a 8 pointer, there are 10 and 12 pointers on this property. You could have done better."
"You probably shot the damn deer in the gut and now the thing is going to stink and the venison is going to go bad".
"It's been 10 minutes now; you can get down and find the deer."
"Why the hell do you want to hunt deer anyway?"
"You should hunt with a bow...it would be more of a challenge".
"OK, it's been 20 minutes now. By the time you reach the woods it will be 30 minutes" "How will you track this thing?"
"There probably won't be a large blood trail because if there was a lot of blood, he wouldn't have made it to the woods."
" Which large birch tree did he run by?"
"7:41 AM. You can go now, as if you'll find it!"
As I approached the area where the deer was when I shot, the voice continued to rehash variations of the same comments. "No blood. See, you barely scraped the damn thing". As I walked up to the tree line I could see the large birch I marked as his entry point but there were two paths he could have gone down. I looked down and saw fresh tracks down both paths but with moisture in the air and the reddish-brown leaves covering the ground I couldn't see a blood trail. "I was right; you won't be able to track this rodent!" As I stepped into the woods I was instantly surrounded by small to mid-sized trees with no blood trail to follow. "You're going to be walking around here for hours and not only will you not find the deer; but also you're going to taint the area and scare off any other deer for the rest of the weekend." I moved 10 feet further into the woods and caught sight of my deer about twenty feet away. As I approached the deer I could see his eyes were open and glazed over which are good signs that he was dead. In what was probably one of the more authentic moments of my life, I dropped to my knees, bowed my head and thanked God for this deer. For a fleeting moment, the voice inside my head was speechless.
I recognize that in the broad scheme of things, bagging my first deer isn't all that significant. For me, the experience was more about setting a goal, doing the work required to achieve that goal, and reaping the rewards of my success. I wasn't anticipating a confrontation with the voice inside my head on this trip but had never previously realized the negative impact the voice can have. I learned on this trip what I have been told before, that we are the biggest barriers to our own success. Recognizing that the voice inside your head isn't your friend can break down that barrier. Next time you hear the voice, listen to it for what it is. It's your voice; you own it. The voice reports to you. If you don't control it, it will control you. Awareness of the voice inside your head can be quite humorous. Overcoming the voice is an empowering experience. Enjoy the conversation, thank the voice for its opinion and more often than not, ignore it!
For the record, I shot my deer squarely as he quartered towards me. The bullet severed his heart, penetrated a lung and exited his left shoulder. It was a perfect shot. To this day, the voice inside my head insists it was pure luck!
