Spring turkey double up

[MrGroundhog]

I wanted to share a hunt from this years turkey season... There is a nice write up on ny antlers outdoors site that my cousin wrote up. But to make a long story short we snuck in on these birds and ended up baging two with one gun. Anyways I wanted to share a pic of the tripple beard. The longest beard was six inches. I thought it was the icing on the cake to top off an amazing hunt that we will never forget.

[MrGroundhog]

Not sure why my photos keep getting rotated?

[NFA-ADK]

Cool 3 wow.  Nice hunt and success!  Congrats! 

[turkeyfeathers]

Nice bird. Congrats 

 

How were the hooks on that triple bearded bird?

[MrGroundhog]

The hooks weren't very big to be honest I didn't measure them but they had to be under an inch

[turkeyfeathers]

Triple bearded is great. Killed my first double beard this year. A good friend of mine who has about 100 birds under his belt, grand slam, shotgun slam and most birds with bow and on video has never killed a double bearded bird. Congrats again.

[wooly]

Kinda hard for me to stay excited about turkey as soon as May ends, but that's a pretty sweet bird!

Curious if you consider that a tom or a jake with the main beard in the 6" range.., I dunno that's why I ask.

How was the fan?

 

[MrGroundhog]

Thanks guy I thought it was pretty special... We were trying to figure that out too wooly haha. The fan was almost full.. The bird fanned out in my profile was the bird.

[ATbuckhunter]

Congrats on the great looking birds!

[landtracdeerhunter]

Congats to you and your cousin on a nice double. That just doesn't happen very often, and going to make for fond memories.

 

Read the story on NYAO., very nice and a great added touch to his website.

[WNY Bowhunter]

Nice birds. That is an big early hatch jake from last year. His juvenile wing feathers are a give a way...

[MrGroundhog]

That's what we were thinking too. He was the biggest looking out of the bunch of four that came in. Does genetics and age basically play into te beard length and multiple beards?

[WNY Bowhunter]

Yes, both genetics and age are factored into beard length on a turkey. Turkey beards grow around 5-6 inches every year. Generally, jakes will have a beard that is 3-5" long, two year olds will be from 7 to 10. After that you will not notice significantly longer beards on birds that are older because the tips continue to wear off through out it's life...meaning that a tom that lives to be 4 years old has grown around 2 ft of beard in it's life!!!

 

Multiple beards are controlled by genetics, but the trait will never become prominant enough in the population that it is common. My uncle was fortunate enough to killed back-to-back triple bearded toms on the same farm in 2012 and 2013...

 

 

 

 

I killed this double bearded gobbler on a neighboring farm this past season. He was my first multiple bearded longbeard...

 

Edited June 9, 2014 by WNY Bowhunter

[MrGroundhog]

That's pretty crazy... Some real nice looking beards right there