The pic of the single tom facing the camera sure has a nice beard & one heck of a set of hooks!
Thanks for sharing.
If you check out the picture above the single tom you are addressing, you will see 4 turkeys coming across a field and the second one from the rt is a long beard and then the same one in the picture which a few minutes later, ended up in the "turkey pot".
Where are the Rios in Colorado, in the S.E. corner?
Here is the mount of my "Rio" shot within a mile of the Kansas line.
I have killed some that had less white and more tan.
Of course all were probably hybrids.
Hunting the habitat is more important than what the bird looks like.
Merriams are best taken in ponderosa pine country.
Rios on the prairie.
Easterns in or along the edge of big hardwood ridges.
Floridas...gee, I wonder?
As writer mentioned, strutting jakes are quite common here in SD. Especially when they are with other jakes. Not so much when a mature gobbler is nearby.
Get a bunch of them and they can act pretty tough. (I've seen them gang up on a lone longbeard and run him off.)
By themselves, though, they wuss-up pretty fast.
Never cared to mount them. Never cared to hunt them. Now that I can somewhat make a passable turkey mount, im completly addicted to hunting them.
Thanks for the compliments. Hundreds of hours and dollars invested in that mount. most taxidermists dont give a turkey the time it deserves to look like the live ones.
Paul, I hope you dont my mind me saving some of those shots for studys?
