05/20/2025
Two-fer Tuesday and throwback combo.
On this day, May 20, 2011, I killed a multi bearded gobbler, 2 days prior to that, my Dad had killed the a multi bearded bird as well. I’ll include short stories of both below, Dads first.
May 18, 2011. Dad was hunting by himself and was playing cat and mouse with a group of several gobblers all morning. Well into the morning, it had started to rain. After several setups and close calls. Dad had the bird in range but the Jakes with him, got nervous and started to bug out. Dad was able to slide himself up the tree just enough to catch the gobbler as he tried to exit over the ridge. Looking like South Park turkey in the rain, dad knew there were multiple beards but didn’t realize how many, he was more excited about the hooks the old boy was carrying. Dad had counted 4 initially but my brother got him dried out and counted 5 individual beards.
He had 1.25” and 1.3125” spurs and over 40 inches of total beard length with the main beard being 11.25”. A true giant and once in a lifetime bird.
We had history with that bird and I’m confident I was within 10 yards of him on morning the year prior, all I needed to do that morning, was slide up the tree like dad had done.
May 20, 2011: 2 days later on an afternoon hunt, I had heard a few gobbles earlier and well below me, after a long warm afternoon, I heard a sound I thought was a doe stomping her foot at me. The sound was coming from down over a steep edge from my left. As the sound became more clear, i could hear the drum following the spit. My heart began to race, I was sitting with a solo DSD hen on an oak flat to my right. As I scanned with my eyes, at 35 yards was a gobbler in half strut looking at the decoy. Thinking of how to move on him, i can still hear the spit… my thought process was, if he’s too scared to strut, I wanted to see the other bird. Finally, the stutter popped up onto the bank, as he spun, the other bird walked behind a tree… i swung my gun. As he turned back around, I took the shot, full strut, face on at 30 yards.
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