Indiana Turkey I got this weekend in the rain.
Hunted Friday and Saturday no luck.
Sunday it was raining Neil and I almost didn't go out.

Went to a cut cornfield and walked to the other side went down a valley crossed a creek and up to the top of another ridge. Got set up and right at light (what light there was in the woods and in the rain) Neil heard a gobble in the distance coming from the other side of the field but I couldn't hear him. Neil did a few soft calls and as the bird got closer and I started to hear him. He stayed out in the field and gobbled for a while. He seemed like he was hung up in the field. We debated about getting up and trying to go to the bird I'm glad we didn't. After a couple more calls and a lot of gobbles I saw a bird on the other ridge beyond the creek not sure at that time what it was. I don't think Neil saw him and just thought I was talking about the gobbles we were hearing. He just stayed on the ridge top gobbling. Then after what seemed like a long time the but really about 10 minutes or so Neil called once again and he came down the ridge towards us. "Game on"  we couldn't see him when he went down to the bottom. So I Thought he would slow down crossing the creek and coming up the other ridge if not stop and hang up there. Then Neil started hitting me on the leg but I couldn't see because there was a big stump between me and the bird. I didn't want to move but Neil kept hitting me, I thought maybe the bird was off in the distance or something. We could hear the Tom drumming but I didn't know he was that close I thought the noise was the rain hitting the plastic Tom decoy we had put out. Then in a instant Tom came from behind the stump took 1 maybe 2 steps jumped on the Tom decoy and began to beat his butt I waited for him to get off and knew he wouldn't hang out much longer so I spun around and fired the shot when he stepped off the decoy. I saw him less than 10 seconds total after he came from behind the stump and "Big Bird Down".8 yard shot.  He went past 2 hen decoys to get to Neil's Tom decoy and put a whopping on his head. Thanks Neil for a great weekend and Chuck for putting us on the birds.

 Big old bird, he had been rubbing and mating so much that his chest feathers were rubbed off and he had a callus worn on his chest.

23 pounds
11" beard
1- 3/8" spurs
3-4 yrs old