1st tom with bow


wheelin99xj

Recommended Posts

Got this tom with my bow opening morning here in Missouri at about 7:15 shot him at 18 yards. The shot was a little low and let to a tough chore finding him, finally got him about 400 yards from where I shot him and about 3 hours of walking trying to find him but it just made it that much better when I finally got him. He came in with another tom and hen strutting and gobbling. There is some bad news though, he had double beards but the main beard was only about an 1-1/2" long looked like it had just been cut off, don't know what happened with that if anyone has any reasons why turkey beards do that let me know your thoughts. The second beard which is the one you can see is 9-1/2" long and pretty thin. The spurs were both 1-1/8" long and he weighed 25 pounds. Pretty happy with this bird.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Congrats on a great bird wheelin99xj.

Sounds like you killed a bird with a melenistic beard. When melenin stops being produced (the black coating on the beard) due usually to the bird getting sick, the beard gets very brittle until melenin starts being produced again and the beard can break off real easy at that spot. When it does break off it looks like it was cut off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.