Close your eyes and imagine the perfect spring morning. What is taking place? Did you go get a coffee from your favorite coffee shop? Are you finally sleeping in after you have been busy for what feels like weeks? Did all of your favorite songs play as you hit every green light on the way to work? Or, maybe you are sitting on your porch, facing east, watching the big orange ball make an appearance on a new day. I can say that none of these are bad options. In fact, they all sound great to me and each one would be a wonderful start to my day. But, is it the perfect spring morning? No, not even close.
Subjective, yes, but that is not the point here. We all have our perfect scenarios and they vary. Nobody is mad about it. You may love sleeping in and getting coffee at 10:47a.m. Others love to get up, read a few pages of their book, and listen to the world wake up around them before they can start their day. I am not writing this to say that there is one perfect spring morning, and if you do not participate in that specific way then you are wrong. No, but what I am saying is that there is a spring morning that can top the rest of them. Whether you have experienced that or not, I hope those that have not, one day will. As it is one of the greatest pleasures on God’s great Earth.
Let us close our eyes again. It is calm, dark, quiet, and then boom, your alarm goes off. It is 4a.m. What the hell is this? Instantly aggravated, you roll over and think to yourself, why? Ten minutes later, you are just dozing off and your second alarm goes off. You know you need to get up. You stumble out of bed and make it to the bathroom. Wash your face, brush your teeth, look at yourself in the mirror, still half asleep, and think, why? As you are putting on your favorite pair of socks and picking out your lucky hat, the alarms you set to make sure you did not over sleep are blaring to the volume of a rock concert in the bedroom. Mad, but knowing you did this to yourself, you shut off the alarms, grab you wallet and keys and head for the door. Why? You get to your truck, pointed in the direction of the nearest Casey’s gas station for 8 miles. There is a breakfast pizza spinning in circles with your name on it. A medium coffee in one hand, pizza in the other. “Have a good day!” “You too.” You are on the way. Got it. Feeling better.
After you get through 7 of your favorite songs, you get to the spot of choice. Throw the truck in park and sit there for a second. Two sips to finish your coffee and you step out of the truck. While grabbing your vest and shotgun out of the back, a whip-poor-will sounds off right by you as to say good morning. This is where it starts. You gather all of your things and take off walking. Each footstep sounds earth shattering. Sound is your strongest sense at the moment. You can hear everything at an amplified level. The only light you have is from the gray light of the morning, well before the sun begins to think about peaking out. It is dark. Trying to dodge every stick and twig, going back and forth in your mind on how far you want to push in. You make a decision and get to a beautiful open timber spot on an old logging road between two ridges. You feel small as you stand there in the dark, imagining what the day brings. As you stand there in the eerie silence, the world begins to wake up around you. An armadillo interrupts the calmness with a reckless appearance. The light on the skyline to the east starts to mix a deep blue with a glowing orange. The birds slowly begin their morning calling. It seems they are announcing to everyone how beautiful of a morning it is fixing to be. A barred owl sounds off, the sound you have been waiting for. Nothing. He sounds off again and there it is. Roughly 200 yards away, a gobble explodes through the tops of the oak trees, shaking your boots and putting a smirk on your face. You are quickly reminded on why you set your alarm for 4a.m.
I am going to stop the story telling right there. The rest of the story is to be left up to the reader to interpret and imagine in their own way. As turkey hunters, ten of us will approach the situation in ten different ways. It is up to you to decide your next move. Defeat is the most likely outcome, we know that. But, what if? It might be the morning this gobbler wants to play right. You might yelp one time and there he is, full strut, in all his glory at 15 yards. Or, he might fly down, go silent, and at 1:01p.m. he will start gobbling his head off as you are forced to retreat in hopes to try again tomorrow. Losing hurts, but it does not hurt as much as not getting to participate in such an intensely calming past time. Die hard turkey hunters will lose for thirty days in a row if it means that they get to chase a wild turkey for 30 days in a row. They do not have to win, but as long as there is a chance that they do win, that is all they need to be motivated to set that 4a.m. alarm.
As the weather warms and spring approaches, I wish you all a safe and successful season in the spring turkey woods! Send us pictures and tell us stories! What an amazing opportunity we have with such a valuable resource. Never take it for granted, one day you will be upset you did.
