My season in Minnesota started today and it was a short and weird one. The spot for today was a small patch of woods, about 80 acres with houses intermixed and nothing but fields for as far as you can see to the south and east and a well traveled road to the west and north. I tend to get pretty greedy when I turkey hunt, I want to be able to see long distances... so instead of picking one side of the fence line to hunt on I picked the southeast corner so I could see both the east fence line and the south fence line. There is a shrub/tree about 15 yards into the field, away from the fence lines, that has finally gotten big enough to use for cover and when I sat down against it I could see as far as I wanted into both fields.
I walked in about 5:00 and it was a dark, foggy morning, so visibility was not good. I got up to the corner around 5:10, messed around at the corner of the woods for a bit, getting my gear ready, getting comfortable under the tree and breaking some strategic branches that wanted to poke at me. I wasn't anywhere near loud but I certainly didn't think I was quiet enough for what was about to happen.
I sat down at about 5:20 and waited and listened. Nothing... dead silence.. not a good omen. At about 5:30 I made a few soft tree yelps and then another sequence at about 5:45... again no response. What did happen however was that 15 yards in front of me, in the tree that was on the corner of the woods, a flash of black seemed to fall to the ground with an ever so slight 'woosh.' I actually thought crow at first because they had been flying around and making noise and I couldn't see a thing in the tangled mess so I kind of wrote it off.. wrong!. Within seconds, a tom was walking out of the woods and headed to my decoy.... with me sitting pretty darn close and holding a slate and striker in my hands
Thankfully my gun was on my lap and I sit pretty low to the ground so when I dropped my slate and striker they dropped right into the tall grass I was sitting in w/o too much fuss. Grabbing my gun was another thing however. I moved as slowly as possible until I noticed him get fidgety and then it was just grab, aim, and shoot! I pulled it off somehow and down he went. I said to myself "what the heck just happened!" How did I spend a half hour within feet of that bird and he never saw/heard me and I never saw or heard him? What a weird, weird hunt. I was a little sad at how fast it happened and I'm not sure if I really increased my turkey knowledge at all, but there's more days yet to hunt in Wisconsin so I'm sure they'll teach me a lesson or two there
He wasn't my biggest bird (20 lbs, 1 1/8 " spears, a 9 inch main beard and two other 5" thin beards) but he certainly was one of the more interesting hunts and he was the first bird I've taken over a decoy. I'm going to count him as a bird "I called in"
