Success story: Whitewater wildlife area to launch 38th turkey season

Gretchen Miller grew up in Minnesota's premier wild turkey range, surrounded by the steep hillsides, mixed hardwoods, trout streams, wetlands, crop fields and grassy prairies that define the driftless area south and east of Red Wing.

More specifically, the Whitewater River Valley "across the street" from her home in Trout Valley was ground zero for the reintroduction of wild turkeys in the state. Dating all the way to 1936, Whitewater was the site of a failed release of farm-raised turkeys donated by the Izaak Walton League. By trial and error, wild turkeys finally caught on in the early 1970s.

With Wednesday set as the opening of Minnesota's 38th modern-day spring turkey hunting season, the state-owned Whitewater Wildlife Management Area not only represents a wildlife management success story but also stands as Minnesota's largest, most durable public hunting grounds for gobblers.

"We have wildlife management areas [WMAs] throughout the southeast that are phenomenal," said Miller, an assistant wildlife manager for the Department of Natural Resources who hunts wild turkeys at Whitewater.

Upward of 75 percent of wild turkey hunting in Minnesota occurs on private land, but scenic Whitewater is popular enough and large enough at 27,000 acres to command its own geographical hunting zone. According to state records, the Whitewater zone attracted 725 hunters last spring, resulting in 228 kills and a 25 percent success rate for gun hunters. Those harvest results were solidly respectable by statewide comparison.

Only two other WMAs in the state — Mille Lacs and Carlos Avery — are zoned as individual turkey hunting lands. Last year, they were host to a combined 165 hunters and 50 tom kills.

Whitewater WMA, located two hours southeast of the Twin Cities, is one of eight major WMAs directly staffed by the DNR. Don Nelson is Whitewater's manager, and he cherishes the spring turkey hunting season, which is traditionally sold out early in the season to lottery permit winners. When hunting pressure eases later in the 11-week season, permits are available over the counter.

"Lots of birds strutting right now," Nelson said in a phone interview last week. "We've got a good number of birds, and they should be in really good shape."

Nelson said he prefers hunting in the late season, when wildflowers are blooming, morel mushrooms are popping up, songbirds are in the air and hunters decline in number. "Whitewater is an area of such high natural biodiversity," he said. "We have lots of areas to hunt."

With more than 50 designated parking areas and additional roadside parking around the sprawling wildlife area, Whitewater also invites spring bird watchers, trout anglers, hikers and dog walkers. And there's no guarantee those users won't accidentally disrupt conditions for some unfortunate turkey hunters.

But Steve Merchant, DNR wildlife program manager, said Whitewater has consistently hosted a large hunt because it's a collection of areas naturally partitioned by steep hillsides, wetlands, hardwood forest and lots of edges and fields.

"You can get away in there," Merchant said. "People are not on top of one another."

Wild turkeys thrive in Whitewater because they have abundant food, cover and isolation, Nelson said. The state helps nurture them by contracting with area farmers to plant crops on WMA land. The farmers take two-thirds and leave a third standing as food plots for deer and turkeys.

According to DNR history, Whitewater WMA was chosen in 1957 for the release of 37 pen-reared turkeys purchased from Pennsylvania. All attempts to re-establish the game birds using farm-raised turkeys failed, as did later attempts in Whitewater using live-trapped wild Merriam's turkeys from Nebraska, South Dakota and Arkansas.

Success came in 1971 and 1973 when eastern wild turkeys were trapped in Missouri and released in nearby Houston County. By 1975, DNR biologists at Whitewater were tracking radio-collared eastern wild turkeys. And in 1978, when Minnesota held its first modern wild turkey hunt, Whitewater participated.

Nelson said Whitewater's turkey hunters often walk in with their own ground blinds. But those aids must be carried out each day, he said. Other hunters build blinds from downed branches and brush.

Miller said she and her husband, Mark, like to hike in a couple of miles, where they fashion a blind using camouflage fabric. They have been disrupted on occasion by other hunters and hikers, but on other days they land in solitude. One time a raccoon crept 10 feet in front of them. Another time, a young deer sniffed at Gretchen's camouflaged feet.

"It's so cool," she said. "Just the experience of being in those woods when spring comes alive, it just catches you."

Tony Kennedy • 612-673-4424