Hunting Alone

For me it wasn't intuitive to hunt by myself. One of the main reasons I go turkey hunting is to spend time with my dad. I like the comfort of having someone nearby while I'm out in the woods. Its also nice to be able to discuss the information at hand and brainstorm to come up with ideas about what to do next. I was very apprehensive about going out on my own for the morning hunt. My dad and I had the same or similar information and so we could take our different viewpoints about what happened on a given day. I think this was good for learning. We could discuss what we saw and heard and later come to a consensus about what we had learned. In retro-spect I think we could have benefited from going it alone half the time during the initial stages of our learning. Our independent experiences could have been put together at camp, thereby effectively doubling our experience. Another good reason to go it alone is you double the ground that you cover as a team. For me this can be a great morale booster. If I have a bad day, my dad's good day can bring me up and vice versa. Also, If we both don't see anything, we can be more confident about moving on. Conversely if we both have good days there is more opportunity for making good decisions about tomorrow. Another good reason not to hunt together is safety. I once had a shot (albeit a bad one), but didn't want to take it because my dad was down range of me. As it turns out, my dad didn't take the shot either because he wanted me to have a shot at the bird if it was presented to me. As it turned out the bird just kept on going and we never saw him again. Lastly, when there is two people in an area there is twice as much movement noise and general hubbub. In fact with two people around, the whole is probably greater than sum and your even more than twice as likely to be busted when your together, considering that people like to talk to each other. One day when the action had died down, I was sitting and watching the woods in my set up when a hen came ambling by. I was having great fun watching her when all of a sudden she became very alert and then high tailed it off over the hill. About five minutes later my dad showed up ready to move on. Had that bird been a rooster I would have had a good shot at it and my shot may have been ruined by my dad getting up from his set up and coming over. By the way, he was a least three hundred yards away in full camo in medium thick woods. By the timing I'm sure that hen saw him when he first got up from his set up. Unless your behind a hill a turkey will see you coming when your walking. The only chance you have not to be seen is when your in light cover, full camo and completely still. I think it is appropriate to walk around and call, but you'll hear turkeys and thereby locate them, rather than see turkeys most if not all of the time. So if you've always hunted with your buddy go ahead and keep the tradition, but make sure that some of the time, you split up.