Wet, tired, soar feet....MAN I LOVE THIS!

[petey]

Once again I got to head South and hunt on my good buddies’ property in Southern IL, (Lamont Outdoors). Despite the VERY wet, rainy, hailing and windy weather, I managed to work 9 different birds during my three day hunt. Each morning was pretty exciting and I had long beards within 45 yards several times, but waited until the last day to shoot one right around the 25 yard mark. We got plenty of footage for Lamont crew. The river was rising pretty quick and a good bit of the property was flooded this year making it especially harder to get to some honey holes. In fact I could never make it to where I shot my birds the past two years, it was already under water! The river came up and the property we were hunting is probably well under water by now. By this past Tuesday it’s supposed to be 22’ under water. Anyhow, we still had a blast and the weather made me feel right at home. I normally don’t get to go hunting unless it’s raining out. We got to stay in the new lodge and those beds were a welcome after the 8.5 hr drive.

Attached are a few pictures. I called this bird and another gobbler in at the same time. They came in on a rope from about 150 yards out in less than 1 minute. My bird is a nice 3-4 year old with 1” spurs, weighed 24 pounds! (tied for the heaviest bird I’ve killed) and had an 8” beard. Half of his beard looked like it was ripped off, so either he’d been fighting or old Billy shot his beard off before I got down there!.. ha ha. I believe this is #61 in 9 States for me. It was a good warm up for our PA season starting in a few weeks.

Lots of walking, little sleep, plenty of water and wet clothes....Man I LOVE this sport!