IL bird

I went up Thursday evening to try my hand again at hunting Illinois public land. Last year I just didn't get to explore much because I filled my permit in a short time so I really wanted to go back. This year I hunted Friday til the 1PM cutoff and today until about 11AM. I covered a lot of ground and really didn't hear that many in total. I also saw several hunters all around which was not the case last year. I first got on two birds this morning but a storm blew in and they shut down while I got soaked. I ended up going to another area and spotted this gobbler out in a private field with 4 hens around 730 AM. I saw that public was on two sides but had to drive around several miles and walk a mile to get in there. After I did that, he was still there with the hens. He would respond but just wanted to strut with them and not come over into the public woods. I had no other feasible option that I was aware of so I just sat there and waited it out. Around 1030, all but one hen left him and he started free gobbling. At that point, he pretty well marched right to me and stayed in range behind autumn olive for about 30 minutes, spitting, drumming, and gobbling. I went quiet and he finally came into the woods and in view. It feels really cool to put an actual tag on a turkey, I like that part of IL. I have no idea why pics are sideways.

Well done!
I agree, using a physical tag just adds to it.


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Congrats!

Congrats! Way to stick with him!

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Congrats!!!
I looked at IL this year, their draw system is confusing to me.
But guess I'm gonna have to dig in another year.

Congrats Steven. You've had a great year.

IL reports birds on the metric system. They give you a mm ruler on your tag. This one was a 273 mm beard and 32 mm Spurs. No idea why they do that but I like that it's on your tag.

Never disappoints when out of state. Well done.

Great bird, Congratulations!

Nice bird. Congrats!!!

Congrats on a good hunt and hard earned bird. Finite metric measurements are definitely more precise, just have to remember the 25.4 factor to get everything in inches. Was weight in metric also?

IL doesn't ask for weight and I didn't have scales. They ask about full fan or not, Spurs, beard, and the color of the tips of the breast feathers????

I guess some folks don't know hens have brown on the tips of their feathers and toms have black tips. Maybe they are trying to trip up someone checking in a hen?

Do you have a 2nd tag for IL?

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Another hard-earned bird.
Congratulations, PH.

Congrats!

megalomaniac":23sk2obm said:

I guess some folks don't know hens have brown on the tips of their feathers and toms have black tips. Maybe they are trying to trip up someone checking in a hen?

Do you have a 2nd tag for IL?

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No I do not have a second tag. IL makes that pretty difficult, IMO. NR's apply in the 2nd draw, Residents get first choice in the 1st draw. I got this tag in the 2nd draw. I could have attempted to get another tag in the 3rd draw but you have to go ahead and pay for the tag without knowing if you will fill the 1st one. For me, I am totally satisfied with 1.Any time I've called about leftover tags, they haven't had any. If I had more time, I would just head to another state, but I would need at least 3 mornings of hunting to justify buying a license personally. I have one more trip planned, but we will just have to see how the virus situation works out. That is Minnesota and isn't until May 20 or so.

Congrats! Nice bird.


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Congrats