Illinois has five seasons and you can have a maximum of three tags that are assigned via drawings. The first season is only five days long and the last one is just eight days in length. With these short seasons, it's necessary to be in the turkey woods as much as possible, including rainy days. Since turkeys live outdoors all of their lives, they are out there come rain or shine. So...unless it's a down pour, I'm out there in my Frogg Toggs rain gear which I prefer over a pop up. Last year's first season dawned to a drizzly, 40 degree day. My decoys were set in a mowed pasture and, because of the direction I assumed the tom(s) would come, were behind me. It was now around 8 a.m. and I'd heard a couple of gobbles in front of me at the crack of dawn, but nothing since even through I'd yelped and gobbled. The big oak tree against which I had my ground lounger limited my vision to the rear even though I slowly rolled to my right and left to check as best as I could. It wasn't until the needed exit of my morning's coffee urged me to completely roll out of my ground lounger that I took a good look behind me only find myself face-to-face with a mature gobbler. He had slipped in silently from behind and was only 25 yards away sizing up my decoys and now me. My shotgun was laying on the ground as he started his swift departure. I grabbed the gun and, while "running" on my knees, went to the other side of the tree. His mistake was stopping at 40 yards to take just one more look back which allowed me to send a load of #5 shot his way, dropping him in his tracks. After hunting turkeys for over 25 years, I still am learning.
