Tommy and the Bearded Lady
Contributors to this thread:Whitetail Deer
From: Don
03-Apr-20
She is on his immediate right.
From: Bou'bound
03-Apr-20
what a spectacular bird
From: JohnMC
03-Apr-20
Cool picture! Who would shoot a beard hen? I had an opportunity before and did not. Not because I am against it. I just prefered to put the tag on a Tom.
From: Don
03-Apr-20
Legal target here but not for me, no desire to kill one.
From: midwest
03-Apr-20
A LOT more meat on that tom! Cool pic!
From: Grunt-N-Gobble
03-Apr-20
Ive had a handful of opportunities to shoot bearded hens but have always passed. The 2nd gobbler i killed last year was following the longest bearded hen ive ever seen.
From: Screwball
03-Apr-20
Absolutely Beautiful
From: MQQSE
03-Apr-20
I always see several every spring on my farm. Must be a genetic uniqueness that we have. I’ve taken one for a mount we were working on. I’ll see if I can find it.
From: Ned mobile
03-Apr-20
I see bearded hens regularly around home.
From: MQQSE
03-Apr-20
My son took the multi-bearded tom and I couldn’t pass up adding a bearded hen to the mount.
My son took the multi-bearded tom and I couldn’t pass up adding a bearded hen to the mount.
From: t-roy
03-Apr-20
I’ve seen lots of them, but haven’t ever shot one. They are not common, but not really rare either. Supposedly, 10-20% of hens have beards.
From: Hawkeye
03-Apr-20
Great pic! Here are three bearded ladies I got this past January. Cool to see:)
From: JohnMC
03-Apr-20
In southeast Oklahoma were I grew up it a lot high that 20~30% for bearded ladies but not sure about hen turkeys
From: Don
03-Apr-20
Lol...perfect !!
From: midwest
04-Apr-20
MQQSE, that's one of the coolest turk mounts I've ever seen.
From: MQQSE
04-Apr-20
Thanks Nick. It was the project that kept growing and growing for my taxidermist. The detail is hard to see in the photo all the way down to the morel mushrooms and may apples. In the end it’s now one of those pieces you just stop and stare at for a long time and each aspect brings back memories of many springs gone by over the last 40 years in the turkey woods.
From: Paul@thefort
04-Apr-20
Interesting stuff. I have never seen a bearded hen or a tom with more than one beard. I will keep looking for sure. my best, Paul
From: OFFHNTN
04-Apr-20
GREAT photo!!!
From: BUCKeye
04-Apr-20
Bearded hens arent very rare around here either. I will be surprised if I dont see at least 1 in the first couple days of season. Their beards are usually thin but fairly long.
From: fastflight
04-Apr-20
Pretty rare to see bearded hens at my spot in Northern Illinois. Maybe I am weird but a bearded hen is on my wish list just because it's something different. Almost like a drop tine buck. Well, maybe that's a stretch....LOL
From: drycreek
05-Apr-20
We used to shoot hens in the fall while deer hunting, and I killed one that I didn’t even know had a beard until I picked her up. We get four tags in Texas and always had lots of hens in the fall, so I usually killed two hens in the fall and saved two tags for spring. Bearded hens were fairly rare where my lease was in Central Texas.
From: Grey Ghost
05-Apr-20
Beautiful pic, Don.
In my area, bearded hens aren't too common, but mature toms with no spurs is prevalent. About half the Merriam toms I've killed have had no spurs. All were mature 20-plus pound birds with long beards and full fans.
Matt
From: drycreek
05-Apr-20
^^^^ I once saw 18 hens parade across an oat field with one tom following. This was fall and I was deer hunting. Hens are not supposed to be with toms. He looked like a tom, but he kept calling like a hen. When they got close enough for me to see him well with 9X binos I saw that he had no spurs. Gender confused ?
From: ahunter76
05-Apr-20
Hen with everything but a Beard.
From: Pop-r
05-Apr-20
I bet she's got a gobbler though!
