Avoid the Habits of the Unsuccessful Turkey Hunter
The spring turkey season is one of the most sought-after times of year for hunting, but aligning the stars to actually bag a bird is often a hard-fought battle with our own bad decisions, or indecisions for that matter.
Whether it’s hitting snooze on the alarm too many times or trying to buy ammo the day before the spring opener, we all possess at least one bad habit that resembles the unsuccessful turkey hunter. With a highly-anticipated spring season quickly approaching, here are the habits of the unsuccessful turkey hunter we should stay clear of this season.
Laziness
Wild turkeys aren’t lazy, so you shouldn’t be either. The unsuccessful turkey hunter doesn’t bother to do any preseason scouting; he decides he’ll just locate that gobbler on the spring opener. When opening day arrives, he hits snooze a few times before finally getting up. To his (self-induced) misfortune, he arrives to the public land access point, only to find it full of vehicles. Instead of having a Plan B, he enters anyway, but he doesn’t want to trek into the obscure corners of the woods. Instead, the unsuccessful hunter stays on heavily-trodden paths expecting to locate a bird.
Shut Up
If the gobbler you’re hunting shuts up, it may be because you haven’t. The unsuccessful turkey hunter walks through the woods loudly with no modicum of stealth, has his box call squeaking in his vest, doesn’t turn his phone on silent, continually fidgets when finally in position and continues to helplessly call with no forethought as to what he’s actually yelping about.
No Foresight
While no one is expecting you to have the keen sight of a wild turkey, having foresight will more likely help you put turkey meat in the freezer. The unsuccessful turkey hunter rarely patterns his turkey gun, and when he does, it’s near where he plans to hunt in the coming days.
Though his stomach cannot tolerate it, the unsuccessful turkey hunter insists on eating gas station burritos before entering the woods.
He tries to buy his favorite turkey loads the day before turkey season starts, and when he gets lucky enough to find some, he forgets to bring ‘em.
He never cleans his guns, so it will more than likely jam on the extraordinary chance he gets a gobbler in range.
Let’s admit, we are all guilty of embodying at least some of the unsuccessful turkey hunter’s misadventures from time to time. Minimizing the unsuccessful turkey hunter’s bad habits will undoubtedly help you in the woods this spring.