Brothers and toms: Darien pair bag big tom turkeys in Illinois’ youth season

Luke Teri (left), 14, leads off Turkey of the Week for the second straight year, this time with his brother Joe, 11. The two from Darien were hunting youth season in Stephenson County.

Joe’s tom weighed 24 pounds with a 10-inch beard and 1 1/18th-inch spurs; Luke’s was 22, 10 and 1, according to their father Matt.

The first of five spring seasons in Illinois’ north zone opens next Monday, April 11. The first of the five south zone seasons opened today, April 4.

Click here for Luke Teri’s TOTW last spring.

TOTW, the celebration of hunting wild turkeys in Illinois and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows), runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times as warranted. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).