On the last day to apply for a leftover tag in the last IL season (5th season), we decided to go to IL. It wasn't very well planned out and really interfered with hunting in MT and halted a Memorial day trip to WA or NE, but we had a good time visiting with family and friends.
On the first day of hunting while trying to work a field strutter with a hen into range, a flock that hadn't said a word slipped in to our right (Isaac's side). There were two toms in the bunch. I didn't have a gun with me on this day and they were too far to the right for Boyd, so Isaac had no problem killing one of the toms. The tom quickly flopped into a big mud hole and looked terrible. I bet he weighed 30 lbs water logged the way he was.
I spent some time, once I got home, washing and drying him for some photos. He was 22 lbs, 9 1/2" beard, and had 1 1/16" spurs.
I spent the next six days working birds in close, several within range, but they never presented a shot. Boyd hunted four of those days with me. I know one day I had three separate toms come in, two within 40 yards that I just did not have a shot at. On the last day, Boyd and I circled a tom that I had watched the day before work his way from one field to the next through the corner of two woodlots. After 1/2 hour of waiting, Boyd was convinced he wasn't coming and I could not keep him awake even when I threatened to kill the tom myself if he fell asleep. One moment I was looking at nothing and the next there was a tom standing in front of me at 25 yards. Unlike I had threatened to do, I quietly woke Boyd and tried to get him on the bird. The rush of waking to a tom, trying to shoot his first bird, and me insisting that he shoot as the bird had figured out all wasn't right was more than Boyd could endure and he missed the tom. He took it hard, but it was a lesson he won't soon forget. I, on the other hand, have learned this lesson before and prefer to not do it again.
It was a good hunt, with lots of gobbling, but in the end I couldn't beat those late season Easterns.
