Today was the first day of this season that I had to hunt in rain. Temps had dropped alot and it was down in the lower 40's with steady rain. I decided to park my bottom in one of my favorite spots overlooking a field. I built a homemade ground blind there and had one of those porta-roof jobbies over my head. Sweet! Being soaked from the walk in and tired from this weekend, I wasn't much in the mood for "run and gun" so I just decided to spend the whole morning there. I don't hunt with decoys often, but I put out 3 hens and a jake.

Over the course of the morning I saw 3 hens and 7 or 8 jakes. 2 of the hens and a gang of 7 jakes would not come near my decoys and fed way out in the field. One hen fed right among my decoys for about 20 minutes and she brought with her a jake. I practiced pointing my gun at him, but never took the safety off. "I'll hunt you next year little fellow", I thought.

As the morning wore on and turkeys were coming in and out of the field, I got to thinking. I cannot recall one rainy day hunt (and there have been many over the years) when I have set up overlooking a field where I have seen a mature gobbler. Tons of hens and jakes in the wet fields, but no gobblers.

Anyone else experience this? Why do you think this is?

i'm not sure about you but around here 7 jakes is a bad sign. especially when they are running together. with 7 of them they can work together to run off any mature gobbler they want.

Yeah, tell me about it. As you can tell we had a REALLY good hatch last year. LOL! Should make for a fun 2009 season, but in the meantime ...................

I saw one of the big boys strutting in front of a bunch of hens at 7:30 tonight. Right in front of the usual roost area. I have to work tomorrow, but if things go as planned, I might be able to sneak out tomorrow a.m. for the first 2 hours of the morning hunt. I'm really just gearing up for thiscoming weekend 'cause I have 3 days off in a row. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!