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01-13-2007 | 11:33 PM

#1

Pat_Ely

Typical Buck

Joined: Mar 2003

Posts: 869

Likes: 0

From: Chester County Pennsylvania

The rainy day Tom!

Rainy Day Gobbler

The alarm clock woke me at 3:15 a.m. From the sound of the torrential rain outside, I knew that the weather would not be cooperating for today’s hunt. I rose and got dressed, and at 3:45 Ed Beam called me to discuss the game plan for the day’s turkey hunt. I told Ed that since the turkey doesn’t have a choice but to hang out in the timber during bad weather, we should give it a chance and see what happens. He agreed, and we met and headed into the timber. On the way into the timber, I told Ed that in order to get to the pop up blind that we needed to hunt from, we would have to pass by the roost tree and needed to be as stealthy as possible. As we crept past the roost tree, I stole a glance upward and spotted nine birds, three of which I could see were long beards. The rain was still coming down in relentless sheets. We made it to the blind, and I placed a jake stuffer decoy and a hen stuffer decoy fifteen yards in front of the blind. As dawn broke, I softly yelped three times with my mouth call. The long beards immediately responded with gobbles. I waited 30 to 45 minutes, and when the birds flew down they were between 60 and 70 yards from us. I softly purred, and the trio of longbeards rushed to the jake stuffer decoy and began to pummel it. I told Ed to hold off for a few moments so that we could enjoy the show the trio was putting on for us. Once the largest of the longbeards stepped away from the decoys I told Ed to take his shot when he was ready. The shotgun barked, and the tom fell. The other two gobblers actually stayed where they were and continued to attack the decoy. In addition, they also hit the downed boss tom a few times. They beat a hasty retreat, however, as we emerged from the blind to get Ed’s trophy. The bird had an 11 ½ inch beard and 1 ½ inch spurs. I shook Ed’s hand and congratulated him as the heavens continued to saturate everything. We then made our way back to the truck. Once we reached the dry haven of the truck cab, we discussed what an awesome and memorable hunt it was for both of us. Ed said that he couldn’t wait until next season when he could come back and hunt with IMB Outfitters again.

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