After spending as much time as I could scouting I hit the woods with high hopes of getting into some longbears on the opener. The morning was great with many different gobblers going off on the roost.
Once the birds hit the ground it was easy to tell that they all had their hens with them. I was able to call in a flock of 5 jakes and 4 hens but opted not to shoot in hopes of finding a longbeard.
I setup on 3 different groups of longbeards but all of them had hens and the hens never left to go to nest. Once the rain set in I decided to ease out of the woods and wait until the evening to try and call one up.
After getting pretty well soaked and glassing turkeys for a while I went ahead and set up a jake and hen decoy in a field where I had been seeing turkeys staging before they went to roost.
With about an hour of light left I saw a trio of lonbeards and 2 hens headed my way. Once the first gobbler saw the jake decoy it was all over. All 3 longbeards came trotting into the decoys and I was able to harvest a nice Tom.
It was a great day in the field and I was able to learn some more about the great sport of turkey hunting.
Here's my Tom with an 8 inch beard and 3/4 inch spurs.
" Shoot em with their feet down "
Eric Strand
Rainy Day gobblers
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