Illinois First Season in the rain

[ilbucksndux]

Well the day finally got here ! ! ! The alarm on my phone didn't go off this morning and I opened my eyes and saw it was daylight and woke up the wife with a storm of curse words. At 0645 I pulled up to where I wanted to hunt and heard one fire off as soon as I got out of the truck. I was moving extra slow and at my second sit the sky got dark,real dark and I just knew I was gonna end up soaked. I did sip on my old Columbia coat but its only good for about 4 hours in the rain. I moved 2 more times and had not heard a thing since I left the truck.By 10:00 it was not raining it was pouring. Luckily I had the tree umbrella stuffed in my vest and it was doing its job well. Since it was raining like it was I put out a jake and hen decoy and hunkered up on the edge of a small field on top of a ridge. At 10:40 I was wet and cold. I had no coffee this morning and in my rush I didn't grab my extra can of chew so I was getting pretty grouchy. I thought I heard something so I pulled my hood off and heard a faint Gobbbbbbllllle. Some crows fired of and I heard it again. With the 15 mph wind and rain I couldn't tell how far it was. I looked out in the field and saw a hen and she was NOT happy with the decoys. She walked up to the hen decoy and was yelping like crazy. She was determined to make them go away. The it thundered and the gobble was real loud that time. Got my gun on my knee and looked to my left and here he came running. He stopped at the decoys about 20 steps and started to strut. I cut hard so he would gobble and when he came out of strut I gave him a barrel of #5's. 30 seconds later I had my foot on his head.I look down and then I see 2 beards !


26 Pounds 1" and 1 1/4" spurs. One beard 9" the other 10"

[TJK68]

Way to hang in there, great bird. Congrats!!!!

[alloutdoors]

Nice bird, congrats! 

[Illini Tom]

congrats on a great tom 
he'll have a heck of a score with those 2 paintbrushes 

[BigStrutter]

Great bird! Congrats!

[DirtNap647]

congrats great turkey

[memert116]

Sweet bird, way to hang in there....

[JALA Strut]

Congrats on a great story and bird!

[spur collector]

Congrats on a fine bird.

[darn2ten]

Congrats! That's a real nice bird.

[hookedspur]

Congrats on the bird and sticking it out.

[renegade19]

 
that's a beast!  My buddy whacked one at 12:55.  Hopefully, my turn tomorrow. 

[ilbucksndux]

I just want to know why the bird was not as wet as I was.

[jblackburn]

congrats!!

[slamman]

big bird with two beards congrats