It is said that on the opening day of the Minnesota fishing season, a million anglers wet a line.

This year, let’s make it 999,999.

It may border on heresy for this Minnesota bred-and-born boy to admit to it, but I am the one who did not participate in our state’s own unique holiday.

Perhaps only another turkey hunter can understand this: We can fish for walleyes for hundreds of days a year but if we’re lucky enough to get drawn for a spring turkey permit, we get to chase them for only five brief days.

On Tuesday, my allotted five days of the Minnesota spring wild turkey hunting season began. That meant my final day, if needed, would fall on the fishing opener.

It was.

For the previous four days, I and a partner matched wits with several turkeys on a farm south of Mankato. Arguably, I suppose it really shouldn’t be much of a contest. Their brains are the size of marbles.

But to make a long story short, every time they zigged, we managed to zag. On the second morning, we set up in a promising little spot in a meadow, only to watch the long-beards skirt along the far edge, a 150 yards distant, seemingly deaf to calls.

On that morning, five curious jakes did close to within about 10 yards, but so early in the hunt, I was willing to hold out for a tom. My hunting partner had vowed not to be so picky.

Unfortunately, 10 yards turned out to be too close. He missed clean with the tightly choked shotgun, sending the birds scattering.

The following morning, we set up once again on the meadow, this time along the edge of the woods where all of the birds had traveled the previous morning.

From there, we watched as several turkeys traveled within yards of our earlier ambush point. And so it went the next day, as well.

Now, understand that I truly had good intentions about the fishing opener. The boat was gassed, batteries charged, reels spooled with new line.

And had the weather forecast been a little less encouraging, I would have sacrificed my last day of my turkey season to partake in what is Minnesota’s own unique state holiday.

But at 3:30 a.m. Saturday, the Weather Channel was predicting gentle breezes and no rain until later in the morning. What’s more, while hunting the night before, I had roosted several birds within 100 yards of where I had set up my blind.