We'll, my day began at 4:00 am, or so I thought. Apparently when I set my alarm I bumped the regular time up an hour so it was actually 3:00 am when I got up. Didn't notice until I was up and dressed so I just stayed up. I figured I might as well head out to the farm early and that was a good thing as when I got to my blind I found it had blown into the trees again. I did my best to be careful and quiet getting it back in place as the birds roost about 60 yards away from my setup. It was still quite windy so I used some branches to stake out the blind and when I got in it I realized the back half was in several inches of water. I ended up putting my chair further forward than I normally like on what I thought was solid ground. Well, all that rain had made the ground so soft that my chair kept sinking in. To top it all off, when daylight started breaking I could see my blind was not ideally positioned. Too late to alter the setup now so I figured I'd just work with it. The rain had started up again and wind gust were threatening to launch my blind once more. Frustration was setting in as I never heard a thing, not a gobble, not a cluck. I was beginning to think the flooding had changed their roosting patterns and I was out of luck. One of those "what the heck am I doing out here in the wind and rain when there's a perfectly good warm dry bed at home" moments was setting in. I figured I was already there so I may as well wait it out for a bit do some calling and see what happens.
Well the waiting paid off. About 6:20 three hens came out of the bush and headed for my decoys. About 30 seconds later the tom followed. As soon as he saw my decoys he went into full strut! I was somewhat caught off guard as these birds never made a sound up to this point. Anyway, the tom headed for the decoys snd presented a perfect shot. One bark from my 16 ga. dropped him at 18 yards.
He weighed in at 22.1 lbs, 9 3/4" beard and just under 3/4" spurs. Great ending to what seemed like less than perfect morning. 
