After a long wait from a retiring taxidermist that fell on some tough times over the last few years, he finally finished 3 of my birds taken down at Osceola Outdoors (withn Mike Tussey) in FL over the years. I was very pleased with his work and it was worth the wait!
It got me fired up for 2013!
The dead mount was an '07 afternoon bow kill (Bowtech Guardina) with a freak jake fan. He had an 11" beard and 1'3.8" spurs. It was on a tv show no longer in business called The Hunter's Journal on the Outdoor Channel.
The half strut was a stud of a bird that came in on an afternoon hunt in '09 and would only get into half strut. He had just under 1.5" spurs and one had no curve like a dagger.
He was shot at a long distance with my trusty 870 20 ga with a Rhino tube and #7 Hevi Shot.
The standing bird was in '10 and was shot on my first morning in the woods with my Knight TK2000 muzzleloader shooting a mixed load of Hevi-Shot. He had the longest spurs I had ever killed (i topped him twice in '11) and was a hammer. He spent nearly two hours making his way out from under his live oak roost tree before he saw my DSD decoys and came in on the bad boy walk. He was doing the "Rodney Shuffle" behind my breeeding hen when I pulled the trigger at about 10 yards.
The bands on the bird are from the taxidermist. I plan to gather some habitat from down there the next time I head to FL to finish them up!
