No gobbles last night, no gobbles this morning, then snow. What a morning, I saw this Tom w/6 super Jakes hunkered down in the snow and work their way to the tember. I went back out around 12:45 when it cleared up. I saw this guy w/Jakes and 2 hens. He wouldn't gobble to calls at all. So I sat at the top of a ridge where I thought he might come through. They didn't come by and still wouldn't gobble to calls. So, I very slowly worked my way down the ridge. I saw something in the trees and look at it with my bino's. It was a tom laying down, couldn't see him all that well and didn't know if it was a Jake or not. I belly crawled pushing my shotgun ahead of me, it was very wet so I did make any noise. After about 75 yds or so I came to a rise and pecked over, nothing, looked over the area w/my binos nothing. I stood up took one step and this Jake got up at 30 yds or so. I froze and made a yelp w/a mouth call. All I could see was movement from several birds, made another call and they started feeding. One Tom came into the open and I saw it was a long beard, I did a loud cut and he stopped and stuck his head up. Bam game over at 50 yds. 2oz of #6, red dote site did the job. I picked 5 or 6 #4's out of him from someone shooting him a while back. 1/4 of his breast and one leg was full of pus, but the wounds were old not from spring.
BTW, the big guy I've been after has his name on tag #2.