Being Deliberate

Last spring I came up with a three part plan to bring my odds up for killing a turkey. One bullet point was to be very deliberate about the decisions I make while hunting. I'll outline what I mean by this. I'll also make it clear why being deliberate is important. You might ask why someone wouldn't be deliberate in making decisions. Well, it is very easy to lose focus while hunting. First of all, no one has told me when I'm doing something wrong. I didn't learn how to hunt turkeys through a mentor. My dad and I were both just as green when we started. If you have a buddy who is very experienced, they will tell you when you've made a bad decision. It is easy to be deliberate when your following someone else. Second, when there is little or no information about the animal your after, it is very hard to make good decisions. You see a little sign or hear a crow cluck and you can quickly be off wandering around on some dead end road. Third, being away from regular society makes superstition more real. It is easy to hear and see things that aren't really there. Being deliberate means not giving in to shadows and ghosts. Either you saw it or you didn't. Making decisions based on "I think I saw something" is a real waste of time. The idea of being deliberate can be a little abstract, but making a decision and sticking with it can really make a difference. Only if a decision is made based on sound logic and real evidence will the effort pan out. So, if you give a decision its proper due, you can also be more sure if it was a mistake. To a large degree this kind of confidence only comes with experience. Here's an example of not being deliberate and what it cost: My dad and I had set up on a hill side near a known roosting area early in the morning. I had located these roosting trees 5 months ago. It was the first time I was able to find bona fide heavily used roosting trees. After a morning full of gobbling and a hen yelping near us, everything shut down. I assumed that the turkeys had all left. About 20 minutes after the calling had shut down, I decided to give up and show my dad the roosting trees, since he hadn't seen them yet. While we were standing around kicking at piles of turkey crap under the trees, the forest exploded with gobbling and it was all my dad and I could do to get to some light cover and sit down. A huge boss gobbler showed up strutting and drumming across the clearing. He was in a hurry to beat up another gobbler who was gobbling nearby. We weren't prepared for these birds to show up because of our lack of deliberation. Furthermore, we didn't hang around very long and try to call the birds back to the area. Here's an unglamorous example of how being deliberate taught me something valuable. One day my dad and I decided to try to ambush a bird on a game trail. We layed up for about 4 hours as quiet as mice waiting for a turkey to show up. The lesson was you better have a pretty good reason to do such an exercise. We didn't and I got the message.