{"id":1079,"date":"2023-04-21T06:27:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T06:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2023-04-21T06:27:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T06:27:13","slug":"tennessee-hunter-tags-seven-bearded-gobbler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/?p=1079","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Hunter Tags Seven-Bearded Gobbler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Tennessee hunter Cameron Freshour must have had a lucky rabbit\u2019s foot in his pocket recently when he tagged a phenomenal, 18.5-pound gobbler sporting seven separate beards. Freshour harvested the bird in Green County northeast of Knoxville, and the gobbler\u2019s seven beards added up to a total length of 46 inches, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/tnwildlife\/posts\/pfbid02fxarAYNpUiYuZbja8J4DhQWgeZSQQ8eioMisvCMaqdcY7YeWxJD1DwSk2YMMuof8l\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency<\/a>. Its spurs were 1 1\/16 inches long.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ftnwildlife%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0cQwfFNkTdQXTbvGq647DowdEmahBDQEF5sGHqjKrTqKhA7VSkhbG8uk9v2WNums8l&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"838\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Wild turkeys with multiple beards are relatively rare. TWRA estimates that less than 10 percent of all gobblers have more than one beard. The agency also points out that many of the highest-scoring birds in the National Wild Turkey Federation\u2019s record book had multiple beards, which makes sense because NWTF\u2019s scoring system takes total beard length into account, regardless of how many beards go into that total. For example, the third-highest scoring gobbler in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nwtf.org\/the-lifestyle\/turkey-records-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NWTF book<\/a> had 13 beards with a combined length of 78.9 inches.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-what-s-considered-a-long-beard\">What\u2019s Considered a Long Beard?<\/h2>\n<p>Naturally, hunters who chase big, wild birds place a lot of value on a turkey\u2019s beard. These are the dark brown or black feathers growing out of the bird\u2019s chest, but they look and feel a lot like coarse hair, similar to a pig tail or a horse\u2019s mane.<\/p>\n<p>Jakes will start to grow their beards by the time they\u2019re around five months old, and these short (one- to three-inch) beard feathers will continue to grow as they age. A typical mature tom will have a beard measuring eight to 10 inches long, and anything in the double digits is noteworthy. The longest individual beard ever recorded by the NWTF was 22.5 inches long. It belonged to a gobbler killed in East Texas.<\/p>\n<h2>What About Bearded Hens?<\/h2>\n<p>Beards are typically found on toms, but occasionally a hunter will come across a bearded hen. This presents more of an ethical dilemma than a legal one, as most states allow the harvest of all bearded birds regardless of sex.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is legal to take a bearded hen turkey,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wildlife.state.nh.us\/hunting\/turkey-know.html#:~:text=The%20turkey%20%22beard%22%20is%20not%20a%20reliable%20indicator%20of%20sex.&amp;text=Up%20to%2010%20percent%20of,pass%20on%20them%20whenever%20possible.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">New Hampshire Fish and Game Department<\/a> states. \u201cBut hunters are encouraged to pass on bearded hens in order to maximize turkey population growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read Next: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/hunting\/turkey-vision-what-hunters-should-know\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Turkey Vision: Here\u2019s What Hunters Should Know About How Wild Turkeys See<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hen beards are typically short and sparse, much like a jake\u2019s. But since they still have the same head size and shape as other female turkeys, it\u2019s easy enough for most hunters to identify them correctly. According to New Hampshire Fish and Game, one out of every ten hens might have a beard, but turkey hunters tend to see them less often.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have never shot a bearded hen, but not because I couldn\u2019t. I just chose not to,\u201d says longtime turkey hunter and champion caller Rick White. \u201cI have seen lots of them over the years. One spring, Phillip Vanderpool and I were hunting in Oklahoma and there were seven bearded hens in one group.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>How Rare Are Multiple-Bearded Gobblers, Really?<\/h2>\n<p>White adds that during his 45 years chasing gobblers across his native state of Iowa and beyond, he\u2019s also crossed paths with more multiple-bearded gobblers than he can count.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\" data-dimension=\"portrait\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A close-up shot of Freshour\u2019s seven-bearded bird. <i>courtesy of TWRA<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve shot many multi-bearded turkeys over the years,\u201d he says. \u201cIn fact, the first turkey I ever shot had two paint brush beards [that were] 10.5 and 11 inches. I\u2019ve also shot two [gobblers] with four beards. A few years back in South Georgia I shot a triple-bearded turkey on Easter Sunday, and the next day I went out and shot another triple-bearded bird.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another hunter, Greg Hildreth, tells <em>Outdoor Life <\/em>that he doesn\u2019t consider multiple-bearded gobblers to be all that uncommon. A coastal fishing guide in Georgia, Hildreth is also a champion turkey caller with 53 years of experience under his belt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will usually take [a bird with more than one beard] every few years,\u201d Hildreth says. \u201cI\u2019m not really sure what my longest beard has been, but it was probably 11.5 inches or so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read Next:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/hunting\/roosting-a-turkey\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Best Tips and Tactics for Roosting a Turkey<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Alabama turkey hunter Jake Markris, meanwhile, hasn\u2019t seen or tagged quite as many multiple-bearded gobblers as Hildreth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been turkey hunting for 38 years and multiple-bearded turkeys are pretty rare to me,\u201d Markris says. \u201cI think in all my years I have only killed five or six that had multiple beards. My best friend Steve Miller killed in one in Nebraska several years ago that had five beards, and that\u2019s the most I\u2019ve ever seen on a turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v3.2\" id=\"facebook-js-js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/hunting\/tennessee-seven-bearded-gobbler\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tennessee hunter Cameron Freshour must have had a lucky rabbit\u2019s foot in his pocket recently when he tagged a phenomenal, 18.5-pound gobbler sporting seven separate beards. Freshour harvested the bird in Green County northeast of Knoxville, and the gobbler\u2019s seven beards added up to a total length of 46 inches, according to the Tennessee Wildlife [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gun-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}